170 Beginnings of Porcelain 



The wheel is termed rokuro f#£ IS (Chinese lu-lu) f which properly 

 means a pulley, windlass, capstan, then further a turning-lathe. The 

 Japanese double wheel has been pointed out (above on p. 165). 



If it is correct that the potter's art came to Burma from China rather 

 than from India, and that glazing was acquired there from the Chinese 

 either directly or through the medium of the Shan, 1 it is probable also 

 that the wheel reached Burma from the same centre. In the town of 

 Bassein the double wheel is in use. 2 In like manner it is probable that 

 also the Annamese, who learned the entire process of porcelain-manu- 

 facture from their conquerors, the Chinese, adopted the wheel from 

 the latter. 3 The invasion of the outskirts of Tibet through Chinese 

 potters working on the wheel has already been mentioned. They 

 use a plain wooden wheel sunk into the ground, and work it with 

 the foot. China, consequently, was the centre from which the art of 

 wheel-made pottery radiated to all other countries of the East, in 

 accordance with the diffusion of Chinese culture among the same 

 peoples. 



The great antiquity of the wheel in China cannot reasonably be 

 doubted. As has been stated, it is alluded to in early writers of the 

 pre-Christian era, and appears to have played a part in mythological 

 conceptions. It is designated by a plain root-word, kiln %} or 09, 

 which means also "even, level, harmonious." It was the instrument 

 by means of which clay vessels were evenly balanced; it was a sort of 

 "harmonizer." A description of the ancient wheel has apparently 

 not come down to us. A commentator of Se-ma Ts'ien's Annals notes 

 that it was seven feet high and provided with a plumb-line for adjusting 

 the vessels. 4 From Biot's translation of the Chou li 5 it would seem as 

 if the wheel were mentioned in that work, for we read, "Tout vase 

 d'usage ordinaire doit £tre conforme au tour. . . Le tour est haut 

 de quatre pieds. En carre, il a quatre dixiemes de pied." A potter's 

 wheel of course is round, and everybody will be struck by the anomaly 

 that the wheel should be four-tenths of a foot square. In fact, the text 

 does not speak of a wheel, but of an instrument manipulated by the 

 moulders. The passage runs thus: ^ 4* it W M P9 K 13 B "i*. 



1 Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan States, Part I, Vol. II, pp. 399, 403. 

 In support of this deduction, the fact is cited, that, in proportion to the population, 

 there are more potters' villages in the Shan states than in Burma, and that in many 

 places, notably in Papun, the potters are emigrant Shan. 



* L. c, p. 400. 



* A. de Pouvourville, L'Art indo-chinois, p. 238. 



* P'ei wen yiinfu, Ch. 51, p. 77. 

 6 Vol. II, p. 539. 



