jiǔ yí
Also rendered: The nine fits (literal, and it reads oddly in English) · The nine indications (clinical, and it imports a later vocabulary) · The nine suitabilities (keeps 宜 as fitness, the site's convention)
Reviewed · 2026-10-25
At a glance
The nine suitabilities are simply the doctrine of the nine needles: 明知九鍼之論，是謂九宜 — to know the nine needles’ account is what the word means. The chapter gives the name and no content, pushing the whole subject back to the needle treatise. Its place is structural: the chapter runs five sets — prohibitions, depletions, excesses, counterflows, suitabilities — and the first four say when not to needle. The ninth suitability is the only positive one, the single door left open.
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 nine suitabilities | the term as the text uses it |
| Literal | nine things fitting | exact, and it needs the sentence around it |
| Clinical | the nine needling indications | clear, and it is an interpretation |
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