Source, connecting and cleft points

Three sets of points give each of the twelve organ channels one point apiece on the arm or leg: the yuan-source points (yuan 原), the luo-connecting points (luo 絡) and the xi-cleft points (xi 郄). The WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine of 2007 defines each by what passes through it. A source point is where the original qi of an organ pours in, passes or stays. A connecting point sits where a channel sends out its collateral, the side branch that links it to its paired channel. A cleft point is where the channel’s qi gathers deep. The three sets come from different texts: the source points from the first two chapters of the Lingshu, the connecting points from its tenth, and the cleft points from the Zhenjiu jiayi jing, compiled by Huangfu Mi and dated by the WHO terminology to 259. This page sets out each list, where the texts disagree, and the two sets that run beyond the twelve channels.

Source points

Chapter 1 of the Lingshu says the five zang organs have twelve source points, which emerge at what it calls the four gates and are the points to take when one of the five zang is ill. It names five points and counts each twice, once on each side of the body, then adds two on the midline for two regions it names gao and huang: the source of gao at Jiuwei, now CV15, and the source of huang at Boyang, which the Zhenjiu jiayi jing gives as another name for Qihai, now CV06. Its source for the heart is Daling, the point now coded PC07 on the pericardium channel.

Chapter 2 adds a source point to each of the six yang channels, a sixth point the qi passes between the shu-stream and the jing-river points. Difficulty 66 of the Nanjing, the Classic of Difficult Issues, then lists a source for all twelve channels and gives the heart its own, at the sharp bone behind the palm, where the Zhenjiu jiayi jing places Shenmen. On the six yin channels the source point is the shu-stream point, so each of those six appears in both this table and the table of Five transport points. Difficulty 66 explains the name: the moving qi between the kidneys is the root of the twelve channels, the triple burner carries that original qi through the organs, and the places where it stops are the sources, so every disease of the zang and fu takes its source point. Difficulty 62 adds that the fu are yang and the triple burner runs through the yang channels, which is why the fu channels carry the extra point.

A 2023 review by Wu and Wang at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine traced the use of the yang-channel source points for disorders of the fu organs to the Nanjing. It found that this use has drawn little attention in practice, and gave three reasons: the Lingshu’s fuller theory that the lower he-sea points treat the fu, limits in the theory itself, and the lack of early texts on it.

Connecting points

Chapter 10 of the Lingshu names the point where each channel’s branch separates and runs to its paired channel: the hand taiyin, or lung, branch is called Lieque and runs to the yangming, the foot taiyin branch is called Gongsun, and so on through all twelve. For each it gives one group of signs when the branch is full and another when it is empty, and says to take the point where the branch separates. For LU07 the full signs are heat at the wrist bone and in the palm, and the empty signs yawning and urine passed often or without control.

The chapter counts fifteen connecting vessels, not twelve, and the three it adds are not paired with an organ channel.

The Zhenjiu jiayi jing records Weiyi as another name for Jiuwei. For the great connecting vessel of the spleen the Lingshu gives full and empty signs of the whole body: pain everywhere when it is full, and every joint slack when it is empty. The chapter closes by saying the fifteen are visible when full and sink out of sight when empty, and that they vary from person to person. Difficulty 26 of the Nanjing counts fifteen by a different route: the twelve, the connecting vessels of the yang and yin qiao vessels, and the great connecting vessel of the spleen. It names no points for the two qiao vessels.

Source and connecting points used together

The WHO terminology defines a source-connecting combination as the source point of the channel concerned paired with the connecting point of the channel linked to it as interior and exterior, the yin and yang channels of one pair. The Zhenjiu dacheng of Yang Jizhou, dated to 1601, prints all twelve such pairs in its seventh volume as host and guest: when the lung is the host and the large intestine the guest, it needles the lung’s source, LU09, then the large intestine’s connecting point, LI06; when the liver is host, LV03 and then the gallbladder’s GB37.

Cleft points

The Zhenjiu jiayi jing marks a cleft point for each of the twelve organ channels and for each of four extraordinary vessels, the yin and yang qiao and the yin and yang wei.

A 2026 study by Tao and colleagues at the Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine followed these four through later texts. It found that their attribution to the qiao and wei vessels gradually disappeared and the points were reassigned to the organ channels of the lower leg, which it attributes to the fixed count of channels and to the need for a circuit of fourteen channels. The vessels themselves are described in The extraordinary vessels.

What these sources cannot tell you

The lists are statements of a classical system, and none of the texts reports how patients fared. They do not agree on every member: the Lingshu gives the heart’s source on the pericardium channel and the Nanjing gives it on the heart channel; the Lingshu’s fifteen connecting vessels and the Nanjing’s fifteen share only thirteen; and the Zhenjiu jiayi jing records Jiuwei as a point to be neither needled nor warmed with moxa, though it is one of the Lingshu’s source points. The editions cited are transcriptions of particular printings, and wording can differ between printings.

A source or connecting point in one of AcuiQ’s protocols records that a study used it, not why the study chose it. The point codes are explained in Reading a point code.