The twelve Heavenly Star points

The fourth book of the Zhenjiu Dacheng records the song under this title: “馬丹陽天星十二穴治雜病”, the twelve heavenly star points of Ma Danyang for miscellaneous diseases. Ma Danyang was one of the masters of the Quanzhen Taoist school in the twelfth century, and tradition attributes the poem to him; what the Dacheng transmits is the text, not its history. Scholars commonly report that an earlier version with eleven points circulated and that Taichong was added later, but that history lies outside what we have been able to verify here.

The poem opens with the entire list in three lines: “三里內庭穴，曲池合谷接，委中配承山，太衝崑崙穴，環跳與陽陵，通里并列缺”. And it immediately makes its promise: “三百六十穴，不出十二訣”, the 360 points go no further than these twelve formulas. It also adds a technical key, “合擔用法擔，合截用法截”, usually read as the way to combine them: in pairs, carrying between two points as with a shoulder pole, or cutting across with a single one.

The name of the heavenly star is no ornament. The same poem explains it with an image of the sky: “北斗降真機，金鎖教開徹”. The Chariot, the Big Dipper, sends down the true mechanism and the golden lock is opened. It is the same Chariot that Chinese astronomy placed at the center of the sky and that the sternum carries in the name of CV21, Xuanji. And the poem ends with the warning of all secret knowledge: “至人可傳授，匪人莫浪說”, it is taught to whoever deserves it, and to no one else is it lightly told.

Each point receives a stanza with its location and what it treats. These are, in the order of the poem:

• ST36, Sanli: “三里膝眼下，三寸兩筋間”, three cun below the knee eye, between two tendons. Swollen abdomen, cold in the stomach, borborygmi and diarrhea, swollen leg.
• ST44, Neiting: “內庭次指外”, lateral to the second toe. Cold extremities, the patient who “喜靜惡聞聲”, who seeks quiet and cannot bear noise, hives, throat and teeth.
• LI11, Quchi: “曲池拱手取”, located with the hands clasped together. Elbow pain, the arm that cannot be raised, the person who cannot draw a bow or comb their hair, fever that does not break.
• LI4, Hegu: “兩指歧骨間”, between the two bones that fork apart. Headache, swollen face, intermittent fevers, teeth, nosebleed, the mouth that will not open.
• BL40, Weizhong: in the crease of the knee, at the center of the pulse. The back that will not straighten, pain that pulls toward the spine. The poem forbids moxa here.
• BL57, Chengshan: “承山名魚腹”, it is also called fish belly. Back pain, hemorrhoids, constipation, cramps.
• LR3, Taichong: two cun behind the joint of the big toe, where “動脈知生死”, its pulse tells whether the patient lives or dies. Convulsions, throat, hernias, clouded vision.
• BL60, Kunlun: behind the lateral malleolus, above the heel. Cramps, sacral pain, sudden breathlessness, the person who cannot take a step.
• GB30, Huantiao: “環跳在髀樞，側臥屈足取”, at the hip joint, with the patient lying on their side and the leg bent. The waist that will not turn, cold and Dampness in the leg.
• GB34, Yanglingquan: one cun below the knee, on the outer side. Swollen knee, numbness, hemiplegia, those who get up like an elderly person.
• HT5, Tongli: one cun above the wrist. The voice that will not come out, “欲言聲不出”, palpitations and anguish, sudden muteness.
• LU7, Lieque: above the wrist, where the fingers of the two hands cross. Pain on half of the head, numbness of the whole body, Phlegm, the mouth that stays shut.

Right after that, the Dacheng copies out the shortest and most memorized song in acupuncture, the one on the four major points (四總穴歌): «肚腹三里留，腰背委中求，頭項尋列缺，面口合谷收». For the abdomen, stay at ST36; for the back, look to BL40; for the head and neck, LU7; for the face and mouth, LI4. All four are among the twelve Celestial Star points, and the song works as their summary: four regions of the body, four distal points.

These songs were memory tools. They condensed into verse what a master wanted the student to remember without a book, which is why each stanza mixes location, indications, and sometimes needling depth and moxa cones. What they say about each point is tradition, not clinical guidance: current indications and precautions are on each point's page.