Historical Notes on Kaolin 115 



6 H is met with as early as the T'ang period (618-906), in the min- 

 eralogical glossary Shi yao erh ya Ti $k Hf #§, compiled by Mei Piao 

 #$ ti& in the period Yiian-ho (807-82 1). 1 Here it is given as a synonyme 

 of kan t'u ~H* :fc ("sweet earth"), on a par with other synonymes for 

 this term, which are pai tan 6 W-, tan tao ft 'M., and t'u tsing rfc ffl 

 ("essence of earth"). At an earlier date we find the term shan in the 

 Buddhist dictionary Yi ts'ie king yin i — • ^0 f£ tb H, 2 compiled by the 

 monk Yuan Ying 7G 181 about a.d. 649, who explains it as shan t'u H zb 

 ("good earth"), and identifies it with " white clay" (pai t'u fi zh) 

 and ngo. The most interesting point is, that this author cites the 

 Wu p'u pen ts'ao ^| m ^ 3£ to the effect that the term pai ngo has a 

 synonyme in the form pai shan Q «P. According to Bretschneider, 3 

 the Wu p'u pen ts'ao was written by Wu P'u under the Wei dynasty in 

 the first half of the third century a.d. If the definition, as handed 

 down by Yuan Ying, was really contained in this work, we should 

 have a formal testimony for the knowledge of kaolin in the third 

 century. The case was presumably such, that in the T'ang era, when 

 the excellent qualities of kaolin were first recognized, the transforma- 

 tion of the word took effect, and ultimately resulted in a new charac- 

 ter formed with the word shan H as phonetic element, and the classifiers 

 'earth' dh or 'stone' 3J. The taboo announced by Li Shi-chen cannot 

 have taken serious dimensions, for the ceramic authors of the Manchu 

 dynasty perpetuated the word ngo, and abstained from the word shan. 

 In a poem of Se-ma Siang-ju, entitled Tse sufu-frlfiLffi,* ochre 

 and white clay (che ngo fi& M) are spoken of as natural products of 

 Sze-ch'uan. 5 The attribute "white" is not in the text, which merely 

 offers the word ngo; but Chang Yi §H &, the author of the dictionary 

 Kuang ya Wi 5§, who lived in the first part of the third century a.d., 



1 Reprinted in the collection Pie hia chai (Ch. A, p. 4). 



1 Ch. 17, p. 2 (edition of Nanking). Regarding this work see Julien, Histoire 

 de la vie de Hiouen Tsang, p. xxiii; Wylie, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 31 1; 

 Waiters, Essays on the Chinese Language, p. 52; Bunyiu Nanjio, Catalogue of the 

 Tripitaka, No. 1605. 



* Bot. Sin., pt. 1, p. 40. 



* Shi ki, Ch. 1 17, p. 2 b. The poet died in 1 17 B.C. 



6 They are likewise mentioned as products of that region (Shu) in the Hua yang 

 kuo chi (Ch. 3, p. 1 b, ed. of Han Wei ts'ung shu). Under the year 991 there is 

 mentioned in the Sung Annals the pictorial decoration of a palace by means of the 

 same two substances. The same term appears in Lie-tse (Wieger, Les peres du 

 systeme taoiste, p. 104), when King Mu built a palace for a juggler, who had come 

 from the farthest west. This chapter of Lie-tse (and probably many others), in 

 my opinion, comes down from the Han period; and this conclusion is confirmed 

 by the term che ngo which does not occur earlier than that time. The work of 

 Lie-tse is first mentioned in the Ts'ien Han shu (Ch. 30, p. 12b). 



