156 Beginnings of Porcelain 



slacken. Notwithstanding, however, the rudeness of this machine, 

 the potters are expert at throwing, and some of their small wares are 

 thin and delicate." It should be added, that, as may be seen in the 

 illustration (Fig. 1) , the wheel is but slightly above the ground, and that 

 the potter stands bent over the vessel. The apparatus, described by 

 E. A. Gait 1 for the kilns of Assam, has likewise features in common 

 with the cart-wheel. While the centre consists of a solid disk of tama- 

 rind or some other hard wood, about thirteen inches in diameter, 

 there is an outer rim joined to it by means of four wooden spokes, each 

 of these being about six inches in length. The outer rim, about six 

 inches wide, is made of split bamboo, bound with cane, and covered 

 with a thick plaster of clay mixed with fibres of the sago palm. The 

 object of this rim is to increase the weight of the wheel, and thereby 

 add to its momentum. 2 In Assamese as well as in Bengali, the potter's 

 wheel is simply called cak ("wheel," from Sanskrit cakra). 



In the Q atapatha Brahmana (XI, 8) the potter's wheel (kauld- 

 lacakra; kulala, "potter;" cakra, "wheel") is thus alluded to in close 

 connection with the cart-wheel: "Verily, even as this cart-wheel, or 

 a potter's wheel, would creak if not steadied, so, indeed, were these 

 worlds unfirm and unsteadied." 3 A similar association of ideas occurs 

 in the Chinese philosopher Huai-nan-tse, who died in 122 B.C. He 

 compares the activity of Heaven as the creative power with the revolu- 

 tions of a wheel by saying, "The wheel of the potter revolves, the 

 wheel of the chariot turns; when their circle is completed, they repeat 

 their revolution." 4 In the porcelain-factories of King-te-chen, the 

 potter's wheel is styled t'ao dtif P^ % (that is, "potter's chariot") or 

 lun ch'i H # (that is, "wheeled chariot"). Ordinarily the potter 

 speaks simply of his "wheel" (lun-tse $fr J*). An engraving of about 

 1540 shows an Italian potter's table in the shape of a regular six- 

 spoked wheel. 5 Technically speaking, the potter's wheel is nothing 



1 The Manufacture of Pottery in Assam (Journal of Indian Art,Vol.VIl, 1897, p. 6). 



2 The Assam potters do not finish their pieces on the wheel, but when taken 

 down and sun-dried, they are placed in a hollow mould of wood or earthenware, 

 in which they assume their final shape by being beaten with a flat wooden or earthen- 

 ware mallet, held in the right hand, against a smooth, oval-shaped stone held by 

 the left hand against the inner surface. When the required shape has been given 

 the vessel, it is again sun-dried, the surface being then polished with an earthen- 

 ware pestle or a rag. 



s J. Eggeling's translation in Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XLIV, p. 126. The 

 exact date of this work is not known, but it is believed that it goes back to the 

 sixth century B.C. 



4 Chavannes, Memoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. V, p. 27. 



1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. V, p. 706. 



