shù lǐ
Also rendered: The rationale of the points (plainer, and it loses 理 as the grain of a thing) · Point order (short, and it reads as a list rather than a principle)
Reviewed · 2026-10-17
At a glance
The principle of the transport points is what 守數據治 must not lose. The chapter’s closing argument runs: in treating illness the qi kept within is the treasure, and one follows and seeks out its principle; seek it and not find it, and the fault lies in the outer and the inner; keep to the numbers and treat by them, and do not miss the principle of the transport points. Able to practise this, a man is never in danger all his life. Not knowing it, the five viscera are pent up and ripen and abscesses break out in the six receptacles. 俞 is read shù and is the same word as 腧, the point through which channel qi is reached; 理 is the order of depth and course that makes one point the place to needle and another not. The phrase therefore carries the whole of the chapter’s technique in two graphs: not the point as a mark, but the reason it is a point.
Passages where the term does real work, with the original, pinyin and English on the same line.
Every rendering below is a decision about which reader is being addressed. There is no neutral option.
| This site | the principle of the transport points | keeps 俞 as the point and 理 as its order |
| Literal | the grain of the transport point | exact, and strange |
| Clinical | knowing where and how deep to needle | clear, and it drops the term |
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