The third character yao (the Japanese yaki) is precisely synonymous with t'ao, meaning first a kiln and then wares of any kind. In its form
it occurs in the Han dictionary; another form is
, which, according to a Sung writer,[296] dates from the T'ang period, and a third form
is current in modern dictionaries.
In short, the Chinese terms are all of a general and comprehensive kind, capable of embracing pottery, stoneware, and porcelain impartially, and there is no single Chinese word which corresponds to our precise term "porcelain." Under these circumstances it is clear that no theory on the origin of porcelain can be based merely on the occurrence of any of these words in early Chinese texts. Still less can any such theory be constructed from the very promiscuous use of the word "porcelain" in European translations, and it is a thousand pities that both Julien and Bushell were not more discriminating in this matter, or that they did not always (as Julien sometimes and Professor Hirth usually did) give the Chinese character in parentheses when any reasonable doubt could exist. Had this been done we should have been spared misleading references to "two porcelain cups of the Han dynasty,"[297] and such loose writing[298] as "In the Wei dynasty (221–264 A. D.) which succeeded the Han we read of a glazed celadon ware made at Lo Yang for the use of the palace, and in the Chin dynasty (265–419) we have the first mention of blue porcelain produced at Wên–chou, in the province of Chehkiang, the progenitor of the sky–blue glazes tinted with cobalt, which afterwards became so famous." The "glazed celadon," needless to say, is purely conjectural, pottery (t'ao) vessels being all that is specified in the passage on which the statement is obviously based; and the "blue porcelain" is evidently no other than the p'iao tz'ŭ (mentioned by the poet P'an Yo and discussed on p. 16), which is better rendered "green ware."[299]
The same kind of criticism applies to all the other references in early writers until we reach the Sui dynasty (581–617 A. D.). In the annals of this period there is a much discussed passage in which it is stated that the art of making a substance known as liu–li[300] had been lost in China, and that the workmen did not dare to experiment, but that one Ho Ch'ou
