Primal Vow　本願 The working of Amida Buddha (dharma-body as compassionate means) issuing forth as the profound desire, wish, or prayer from the deepest source of life itself, dharma-body as suchness, to free all beings from the weight of karmic evil in the ocean of birth-and-death. It is taught in the Larger Sutra, the Chinese translation ascribed to Saṃghavarman (Kōsōgai) of the Wu Dynasty (A.D. 252), as the Forty-eight Vows of Amida, the most important being the Eighteenth Vow. The Sanskrit original, pūrva-praṇidhāna, implies that the Primal Vow, as the manifestation in time, from ten kalpas ago, of that which is timeless, existed prior to (pūrva) the earliest being, and that it is the basic and foundation of each being, leading it to its self-awareness from the bottomless depths of life.