Turning to Chinese literature, in default of other and more tangible evidence, we read in the _T´ao shuo_[27] of pottery dishes and wine vessels in the Wei dynasty (220-264 A.D.), and in the _T´ao lu_ of pottery made at Kuan Chung, in the district of Hsi-an Fu, and at Lo-yang for Imperial use. The poet P´an Yo, of the Chin dynasty (265-419 A.D.), speaks of "cups of green ware." The actual words used are _p´iao tz´ŭ_,[28] of which the former is elsewhere used to describe "the bright tint of distant, well-wooded mountains," and as a synonym for _lü_ (green), though, like the common colour word _ch´ing_, it is capable of meaning both blue and green. The ceramic glaze which most closely corresponds to the description _p´iao_ is the bluish green celadon best known from Corean wares, but we have not yet sufficient grounds for assuming the existence of this particular type at such an early date. Another poet[29] of the same period bids his countrymen, when selecting cups for tea-drinking, to choose the ware of Eastern Ou, a place in the Yüeh territory, and apparently in the neighbourhood of, if not identical with, the Yüeh Chou, which was celebrated for its wares in the T´ang dynasty. The period of the "Northern and Southern Dynasties" provides but two references, to a kind of wine vessel known as "crane cups" but otherwise unexplained, and to _chün-ch´ih_ of fine and coarse ware,[30] which appear to have been Buddhist water vases for ceremonial washing, or _Kundikâ_, which the Chinese have transcribed in the form _Chün-ch´ih-ka_. Buddhism was making great strides in China at this time. It was proclaimed the state religion of the Toba Tartars or Northern Wei, who ruled the north from 386 to 549 A.D., and Buddhist thought and the canons of Buddhist art were now firmly imposed upon the Chinese. The rock sculptures of this period visited and photographed by Chavannes show unmistakable traces of the Græco-Buddhist art of Gandhara; and in one remarkable instance among the figures which were sculptured round the entrance of a Buddhist grotto were deities with a thyrsus like that of Dionysus and a trident like Poseidon's. In the annals of the brief Sui dynasty (581-617 A.D.), we find that a man named Ho Ch´ou succeeded in exactly imitating a glassy material called _liu li_ by means of green ware. The exact meaning of this interesting passage is discussed elsewhere (p. 144), but it is difficult to imagine any but a porcellanous ware which could satisfy the conditions implied. Under the circumstance it is not surprising if theorists see in this green ware (_lü tz´ŭ_) something in the nature of the later celadon porcelain. NOTE ON THE EARLY CHINESE TOMB WARES