What This Concept Is Saying
The Core Definition
本願 (*běn yuàn*, Sanskrit *pūrva-praṇidhāna*, often translated "Original Vow" or "Prior Aspiration") names something quite specific and easily flattened: a vow made by a bodhisattva *in the past*, usually at the very moment of 初發心 (*chū fāxīn*, "first arousing of the mind") or earlier stages of practice, that becomes the structural anchor for an entire trajectory toward Buddhahood and the salvation of all beings.
It is not a wish. It is not a New Year's resolution. It is not a prayer. It is not a contract. The classical sources treat it as something closer to a *founding charter with binding force* — written into the marrow of a being's long-term unfolding across lives.
The 唐譯《華嚴經》(T0279) states the heart of this with unmistakable clarity: "要當先令一切眾生得無上菩提、無餘涅槃，然後成佛" — "I must first enable all beings to attain supreme Bodhi and complete Nirvāṇa, and *only then* attain Buddhahood myself." The same passage notes that to attain Buddhahood first, abandoning beings, would be "違我本願" — "a violation of my original vow."[^1]
This points to the most striking feature: the vow is 徹底利他 — thoroughly, radically other-oriented. It is not a vow made *by* oneself *for* oneself; it is a vow made on behalf of all beings that the practitioner has pledged themselves to.
The Texture of the Concept: Five Operating Modes
The classical sources do not treat 本願 as a static pronouncement. They show it as a living force that operates in at least five distinct modes. Each must be kept distinct, because the contemporary mind easily collapses them into a single fuzzy notion of "intention."
1. 本願力 (Original Vow Power) — As the *Source* of Buddhalands and Blessings
In the *Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra* (T0310) and the *Avataṃsaka Sūtra* (T0278, T0279), the text repeatedly explains the sheer existence of pure lands, their jeweled adornments, and the salvific light and powers of Buddhas as fundamentally arising from past vows.
A few examples, each distinct:
- 無量壽佛 (Amitāyus / Amitābha): "光明普照" and the fact that bodhisattvas in his land can in the morning worship countless other-world Buddhas and return by evening — this "希有神力" arises from "本願威神" and "本願加威" (the awe-inspiring and supportive might of the original vow).[^2] - 不動如來 (Akṣobhya) and the Abhirati World: Why is there no sexual desire, no hunger, no commerce, no farming, only Dharma-delight and continuous lotus-light? Because of "由彼如來本願力故" — "entirely due to the Tathāgata's original vow power." The bodhisattvas there do not forget the sūtras across rebirths because of "不動如來本願功德之所莊嚴" — the adornment-craft of the Tathāgata's vow-merit. Even *after* Akṣobhya's parinirvāṇa, bodhisattvas can still enter his assembly and hear the Dharma — again, "由彼如來本願力故."[^3] - 盧舍那佛 (Vairocana, Jin translation): Why does his land abide in purity? Because of "本願底故" (lit. "底" — the deep *foundation*, ground) and his "曠願" (the vast vow). All the Samantabhadra Bodhisattva's infinite manifestations throughout all buddha-fields are grounded in this prior foundation.[^4]
The contemporary mind should hold these distinct: the vow is not *decorative* over a pre-existing world; it is the *constitutive cause* of the world's character.
2. 本願 as *Absolute Binding Force* on the Bodhisattva's Conduct
The second mode is the *binding force* on action. This is what turns the vow from a sentiment into an ethical spine.
- In the 月燈王 (Moonlight King) episode (T0310), the Buddha-as-Moonlight-King, when a blind man asks for his eyes, responds: "若我不施汝，是則違本願" — "If I do not give them to you, that would be a violation of my original vow."[^5] - Another bodhisattva, at his first arousing of the mind, vows: any beast or bird that devours his flesh after death will, on the strength of this vow, ascend to the heavens, attain liberation, and enter the path — what the text calls "菩薩本願殊特之所致" (the singular, transcendent work of the bodhisattva's original vow).[^6] - Across the classical sources we hear the constant refrain: "不捨本願" ("not abandoning the original vow"), "常守本願" ("continuously guarding the original vow").
Most strikingly, the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa itself is "本願所持" — held, sustained by the original vow. The Jin translation says it precisely: "本願所持，不捨一切眾生、一切佛剎、一切諸法" — "Held by the original vow, [the Tathāgata] does not abandon any being, any buddha-field, any dharma."[^7] Even in the midst of "entering" final nirvāṇa, the vow holds the door open for beings. This is not a casual metaphor; the vow is what keeps the Buddha available.
3. 本願力 as the *Differentiator* between Buddhas' Trajectories
The third mode is wonderfully easy to overlook: the vow explains *why different Buddhas appear in such different worlds and times*.
The text pairs two Bodhisattvas for contrast (T0310):
- 彌勒菩薩 (Maitreya): he vowed to attain Buddhahood in an age when sentient beings have "薄婬怒癡成就十善" — thin passions and the consummation of the ten virtues. His future Buddhahood is "由彼菩薩本願力故." - 釋迦牟尼佛 (Śākyamuni): he vowed to attain Buddhahood in the "五濁惡世" — the evil age of five turbidities, where beings are heavy with greed, hatred, and ingratitude. The fact that "the Buddha now endures slander and reviling in the world, and teaches the Dharma to evil beings" — this is "以本願力" that lifted up great compassion. The vow did not soften the conditions; it compelled him *into* them.[^8]
This distinction matters: the same vow-form yields radically different world-historical commitments. Vow is not abstract.
4. 本願力 as the *Cause* for Beings to Hear the Dharma and for Bodhisattvas' Rebirth
The fourth mode is what might be called the *epistemological* or *karmic-reception* dimension. Why do some beings encounter deep teachings at all? Not by accident, the texts insist, but by "本願力" guiding the encounter.[^9] A deva describes his own birth in a particular forest, with its auspicious signs, as conditioned by "具足一切菩薩受生大願" — "completeness of all bodhisattva-rebirth vows."[^10]
5. 宿世本願 — *Past-life Vow* as the Reason for Even Seemingly Minor Roles
The fifth mode may surprise the contemporary reader. The vow explains not only the protagonist's role but the whole supporting cast:
- 密迹金剛 (Vajrapāṇi), who guards bodhisattvas throughout the Worthy Kalpa, does so because of "本願所致" and "本宿自在誓願" — his own prior, sovereign vow.[^11] - 吉安 (Ji'an), the elder who offers grass to the bodhisattva at a crucial moment, acts from "宿世本願" — his past vow ripening in this moment.[^12]
Even what looks like a happenstance encounter is, on the deep view, the ripening of someone's vow.
A Note on Terminology Across the Canon
The classical corpus is unusually rich in near-synonyms; readers who treat "本願" as a single rigid word miss how the tradition thinks:
- *T0310* (Mahāratnakūṭa) uses: 本願殊特 (singular/transcendent original vow), 本宿自在誓願 (prior-sovereign vow), 本發意時心自要誓 ("the heart's firm oath at the time of first arousing the mind"), 大願種子 (seeds of great vows), 堅固誓願 (firm/adamantine vow), 本願功德 (vow-merit), 本願威神 (vow-majesty), 本願加威 (vow-augmenting-power), 本願善根力 (vow-rooted-in-merit power). - *T0278* (Jin Avataṃsaka) uses: 本願, 本願力, 大願, 曠願 (vast vow), 淨願 (pure vow), 受生大願 (great vows of rebirth), 行願 (vow-in-practice). - *T0279* (Tang Avataṃsaka) shifts register: 本誓願力, 本誓願, 本願音 (the "sound of the original vow" — the pure shore resonates with the resonance of past vows), 大誓願 (great adamantine vow), 十盡句 ("ten exhaustion-clauses" — "when the domain of beings is exhausted, only then may my vow be exhausted; until then, never"), 如金剛大乘誓願心 (the vajra-like Mahāyāna vow-heart), 菩薩願, 願力.
The very diversity shows the tradition was working hard to describe a single reality from several angles: the content, the force, the temporal orientation, the integrity, the resonance.
How 本願 Sits in the Larger Map of Liberation
Three relationships help place the concept precisely:
- With 大悲心 (Great Compassion): Compassion is the *spontaneous upwelling* of the heart for beings; the vow is the *deliberate commitment* by which compassion becomes an unconditional binding oath. "大悲" without a vow is sentiment; a vow without compassion is cold protocol. The two together make bodhisattva-vocation possible.[^13] - With 智慧 (Wisdom): The Tang Avataṃsaka insists that the bodhisattva's transformations to tame beings are "願及智所攝成" — *matured by vow-and-wisdom together*. Vow without wisdom becomes rigid; wisdom without vow becomes cool.[^14] - With 善根力 (Root-of-Merit Power): A vow does not float. When the Bodhisattva Akṣobhya made his vow in *T0310*, he "以本願善根力令大地六種震動" — the earth shook sixfold to vouch for the vow's karma-rooted integrity.[^15]
So 本願 is not a one-off utterance. It interlocks with the practitioner's accumulated merit and the wisdom that knows how and when to apply it.
The Famous Mirror-Quote
The phrasing in T0279 — "要當先令一切眾生得無上菩提、無餘涅槃，然後成佛" — has become, across East Asia, the canonical expression of what is sometimes called the bodhisattva vow in its universal form (think of the well-known line "自未得度先度他, 願以此身代受苦"). It is the Pure Land Buddhist world no less than the Avataṃsaka world that takes this as the structural shape of any genuine vow. (The most famous specific instance is, of course, Amitābha's 48 vows, though those vows are not named in your provided excerpts; the principle they instantiate is fully displayed in what we do have.)
Walking Through It in Contemporary Life
This is a section where mis-mapping is easy. So we walk slowly through several real-feeling contemporary scenes, mapping each layer of the classical definition carefully, and flagging where the popular mind usually slips.
Scene 1: "I want to start a meaningful career — maybe teaching, maybe medicine, maybe building something."
A contemporary person feels a strong pull toward a meaningful vocation and articulates something like "I want to spend my life doing this." The classical bodhisattva frame says: this is the moment of 初發心 — the first arousing. The classical map says that the vow made at this moment, if it is genuinely 本願, has at least three features:
- It is oriented around *others' benefit*, not one's own comfort ("先令一切眾生得無上菩提"). - It is willing to go where the work *actually needs to be*, not where one prefers to be (Śākyamuni chose the five-turbidity age; Maitreya chose the clean age; the vow determines terrain). - It carries an implicit promise: "if I abandon this commitment to seek my own comfort/ease first, that will itself be a violation."
*Where the mind slips*: treating a personal ambition as if it were a vow. Ambition centers the self; a genuine vow centers the work and the others it serves. The Chinese tradition has a phrase that helps: "願" (yuàn, vow/aspiration) is fundamentally different from "慾" (yù, desire/greed) — they are written with different radicals, and the shift from one to the other is the most common corruption of a spiritual vocation.
Scene 2: "After ten years, the work is hard, I'm tired, and I'm wondering why I'm still doing this."
The classical diagnosis would be: this is precisely where 守本願 (guarding the original vow) becomes the issue. The Jin translation's language is sharp: "本願所持" — *held*, as in, kept up by, the prior vow. The vow is what supplies the binding force when enthusiasm has faded.
A contemporary practice note: people sometimes try to renew enthusiasm through more motivational language. The classical sources would suggest the opposite — to *return to the moment of first arousing* (the 本發意時) and re-read what was committed there. This is what it means to "常守本願." The vow is not located in present mood; it is anchored in one's original clarity.
*Where the mind slips*: confusing the vow with daily motivation. Motivation is mood-dependent; the vow is a structural commitment made to outlast mood. AI/attention research shows that completion of long-horizon projects requires precisely this — a stable reference point beyond fluctuating affect. (To be clear: this does not "prove" Buddhism; it only shows a parallel structure in how long-term human projects work.)
Scene 3: "I'm a teacher / nurse / social worker / therapist. I keep encountering people, and some of them seem to find me at just the right moment."
The classical texts say: 眾生得聞佛法 — beings hearing the deep Dharma — is "當知本願力" — know that it is the operation of prior vow-power. The bodhisattva-attractor is a feature, not a coincidence.
In contemporary terms: we often encounter the "right person at the right time" — a mentor, a healer, a stranger whose words crack open something. The classical frame does not flatten this into "coincidence" but reads it as the ripening (成熟) of someone's vow that is precisely *to be there for beings such as you*.
*Where the mind slips*: turning this into fatalism ("everything is destined") or narcissism ("I am so special"). The vow is not about the practitioner; it is about the *reaching-to-the-other*. The correct reading is: "May I be available to the reach."
Scene 4: "My friend and I have a strange chemistry — they show up when I need them, I show up when they need them."
The 吉安 (Ji'an) and 密迹金剛 (Vajrapāṇi) cases in T0310 describe exactly this. The classical category: 宿世本願 — past-life vow. The student meets the teacher; the client meets the therapist; the elder offers grass at the critical hour. The texts insist these are not accidents.
The contemporary reframing: some of the most life-shaping relationships are not the ones we "chose" in any ordinary sense; they are the ones we *found* ourselves already in. The vow-lens offers a way to honor this without sliding into cosmic-flake territory: it suggests that the *quality of presence* one brings to such relationships can be tended, that vow-aware relationships are those one tries not to abandon when they're inconvenient.
*Where the mind slips*: confusing this with the colloquial idea of "soulmates" or "kismet." The classical framing is more sober — it does not promise romance or ecstasy; it asks for *reliability across time*.
Scene 5: "I have a chronic illness, or I'm aging, or my body is failing. What does 'vow' mean here?"
The Moonlight King episode in T0310 is decisive on this: the vow persists even when the body is being given away. "若我不施汝，是則違本願" — even with an eye being pulled out, the vow must hold. The vow outlives the form of the practitioner. This is why 如來涅槃 (the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa) is described as "本願所持" — *held open by* the prior vow, so that even in apparent final rest, the Tathāgata does not abandon any being.
For a person facing their own limits: the vow is what holds the door open for others when you cannot. A parent's vow toward a child does not vanish with dementia; a teacher's vow toward students does not vanish at retirement. The classical claim is strong: 本願 does not cease at death, at burnout, or at the end of any specific form of activity.
*Where the mind slips*: reading "vow" as a feeling of obligation one feels while alive. The vow is a *structural commitment that continues to function after the feeling is gone*. This is the hardest part of the concept, and the classical sources do not soften it.
Scene 6: "Why does it feel like some places are unusually healing — a particular retreat center, a particular forest, a particular temple?"
The "由彼如來本願力故" formulation in T0310 (regarding Akṣobhya's Abhirati world) gives a template. Some places are woven through with the residue of *commitments* — possibly those of founders, of countless practitioners over time, of intentions held for generations. The atmosphere of such places is not mere aesthetics; it is 本願加威 — the augmenting-power of vow.
For contemporary lives: this is one reason people return, year after year, to the same teacher, the same room, the same mountain. They are responding, often without words, to the vow-power stored in that configuration.
*Where the mind slips*: treating this as superstition ("this object has magical energy"). The classical frame is not about magical objects; it is about *intentions sustained across time*. Such intentions are real causal forces, in the Buddhist understanding of karma, not properties of matter.
Why People Living Now Need This Concept
The Trouble with Modern Long-Horizon Commitments
Contemporary life makes it harder, not easier, to sustain long commitments. Three structural pressures stand out:
- Attention is fragmented. The classical vow presupposes long continuity of attention; modern attention is dollar-auctioned by platforms. Without a robust concept like 本願, the practitioner simply *cannot* hold a thirty-year intention. AI-personalization can scale content; it does not naturally scale long-horizon commitment. The vow is the discipline of taking oneself off the auction. - Identity is treated as fluid and revisable. Modern culture often treats persistent commitments as "limiting." The vow is a counter-claim: that some commitments are *constitutive of identity*, not constraints on it. The 金剛誓願 (vajra-like vow) language in T0279 — "如金剛大乘誓願心" — insists on this integrity. - Compassion fatigue is real and documented. Caregivers, teachers, healthcare workers, climate organizers all burn out. The classical resource for this is precisely the structure of 本願 — *a commitment that does not depend on one's current feeling of care*. The vow is the form compassion takes when feeling wears thin.
Why the *Form* of the Concept, Not Just Its Sentiment, Matters
Many contemporary writers try to recover "purpose" or "meaning," which is close to but not identical with 本願. What's specifically needed in modern conditions is the *binding force* element, which English "purpose" lacks. The classical vow is binding because it answers to one's own prior clarity and to the needs of specific beings. It is the difference between:
- "I want to do meaningful work" (a sentiment, revisable) - "When I first woke up to this, I made a promise to all who would need me — and that promise is what I am living out now, especially when I don't feel it" (a vow, structural)
A Note on the Limits of Modern Comparisons
It is tempting to compare 本願 to brand missions, to organizational charters, to personal manifestos. These are useful *analogues* in that they all involve prior commitments that outlast individual moods. But the differences are real and should be kept in view:
- Organizational missions are typically aimed at stakeholders or shareholders; the bodhisattva vow is aimed at all beings without exception, and *specifically* prioritizes the most suffering (the five-turbidity-age vow of Śākyamuni, the vow of the bodhisattva to be eaten for the beasts' sake). - Personal manifestos are typically maintained by individual willpower; the bodhisattva vow is sustained by 本願力 — a power understood to be operating *through* the practitioner, not merely generated by the practitioner. - Brand missions are time-limited to organizational lifespan; classical 本願 is described as "十盡句" — only exhausted when the domain of beings itself is exhausted. (T0279, 十盡句)
Neurological and behavioral research on long-term motivation suggests that *intrinsic, identity-bound* commitments tend to outlast *extrinsic, reward-based* ones. This is an interesting parallel. But the classical tradition would say this is the smallest visible part of something much larger; the vows functioning across lives and across beings cannot be reduced to brain-state dynamics.
Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Misreading 1: "本願 is essentially a synonym for Amitābha's 48 Vows."
This is the single most common popular conflation. Amitābha's 48 vows are the most famous instance of 本願 in East Asian practice, but the term in the classical sources — T0278, T0279, T0310, T0450 — denotes a universal bodhisattva structure: Vairocana's "曠願," Akṣobhya's land-creating vow, Medicine Master's twelve vows in T0450, Maitreya's clean-age vow, Śākyamuni's five-turbidity-age vow, the moon-light-king's eye-giving vow. Reducing 本願 to a specific Pure Land instance is like reducing "song" to mean only the Beatles.
*Clarification*: 本願 is a bodhisattva-concept that Amitābha exemplifies but does not monopolize. The four sūtras you've been given all make this clear.
Misreading 2: "A vow is essentially a wish, just a more religious-sounding wish."
In common speech, "I vow to..." is often little different from "I really hope to..." The classical structure refuses this flattening:
- A wish is *mood-dependent*; the vow "本願所持" outlasts mood, circumstance, even bodily form. - A wish centers the speaker's current preferences; the classical vow is structured to surpass the speaker's preferences — "若我不施汝，是則違本願" is precisely the language of an obligation that overrides what one currently feels like doing. - A wish has no binding force on others; a vow, in the bodhisattva frame, *cultivates the conditions under which others can encounter the Dharma* and *shapes the world that arises from the practitioner's commitments*.
Misreading 3: "The vow is a kind of contract or cosmic deal — I do X, and the universe gives me Y."
This transactional reading creeps in especially with the 48-vows framework ("I vow to make a pure land, conditioned on X, Y, Z"). The classical sources clearly resist this. The Ten-Exhaustion Clauses ("十盡句") in T0279 — "only when all beings are liberated may my vow be exhausted" — locate the vow's "fulfillment" outside the realm of personal payoff. The vow is closer to a constitutional commitment than a trade.
Misreading 4: "If the vow is so absolute, it must be coercive — the bodhisattva has no freedom."
The classical answer is the opposite. "自由" (freedom) in the bodhisattva sense is the freedom to *fully align with one's deepest vow*, not the freedom to *abandon it*. The classical sources explicitly tie the vow to 自在 (svatantra, sovereignty) — see "本宿自在誓願" in T0310, "literally prior-sovereign-vow." The vow is what enables spontaneous activity in service of all beings, not what restricts the practitioner. The symbolic turning point in the Moonlight King episode is not that he *must* give up the eye against his will; it's that the giving is *who he is*, and not-giving would be the alienation.
Misreading 5: "The vow is made once and then automatic; I don't need to renew it."
The constant refrain in the texts — "不捨本願," "常守本願" — directly contradicts this. The vow is a structural anchor; it must be *tended*, *guarded*, *not abandoned*. In contemporary language: this is *practice*, not a single moment. Every daily return to one's first commitment is a re-guarding of the vow. The "本發意時心自要誓" is the foundation; the "常守本願" is the work.
Misreading 6: "本願 is only about big, dramatic commitments (becoming a Buddha, saving all beings). Daily life can't be part of it."
The classical sources are explicit: every realm of activity is the vow's working ground. Vairocana's vow *holds up worlds*; Akṣobhya's vow *structures a land's quality of life*; Medicine Master's vows (T0450) *specifically include* ordinary wellbeing — health, freedom from fear, basic necessities. The bodhisattva vow is not above ordinary life; it is the orientation that ordinary life is asked to serve.
Misreading 7: "If the bodhisattva already has this vow from past lives, there's nothing for me to do now."
The texts take the opposite position. The vow, once known and named, becomes a *current* claim on one's ongoing life. The classical condition for realization — 法眼淨 (purified Dharma-eye), 見佛 (seeing the Buddha), 入正位 (entering the right stage) — is precisely the conscious *recognition* and *re-vivification* of the prior vow. Without present attention, the vow operates in us unconsciously, like a buried memory; with present attention, it becomes a force we can knowingly serve.
A Closing Orientation
If you hold just one structural insight from the classical sources on 本願, let it be this: the vow is the form compassion takes when compassion wants to be reliable. Sentiment is unreliable; vows are the architecture of reliability in the service of all beings.
When we read of Vairocana's "本願底" — the *foundation* of prior vow — we are reading of something that holds up worlds. When we read of Śākyamuni choosing the five-turbidity age precisely *because* his vow was to be of use in the hardest setting, we are reading of a vow that is not in tension with difficulty but *loves* difficulty as its proper field. When we read that "even the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa is held open by the vow," we are reading of a structure more enduring than any single form of life.
The contemporary person does not need to become Śākyamuni to find this useful. They need only to notice the difference between *a wish that floats* and *an original vow that holds*. When that distinction becomes real in one's own life — in a vocation chosen, in a relationship held, in a refusal to abandon what one once clearly saw — then 本願 is no longer just a doctrinal term. It is, to borrow the Mahāratnakūṭa's framing, what the practitioner is "由彼如來本願力故" *held by*, and what the world around them is, in turn, *remade by*.
Canonical sources referenced:
[^1]: 《大方廣佛華嚴經》(唐譯, T0279): "要當先令一切眾生得無上菩提、無餘涅槃，然後成佛" / "違我本願" — chunk:470. [^2]: 《大方廣佛華嚴經》 & 《大寶積經》(T0310): "本願威神" / "本願加威" — chunks:13114, 14105 (regarding 無量壽佛 Amitāyus). [^3]: 《大寶積經》(T0310): re 不動如來 (Akṣobhya) and 妙喜世界 (Abhirati): chunks:14498, 14501, 14573, 14625. [^4]: 《大方廣佛華嚴經》(晉譯, T0278): "盡盧舍那，本願底故，普賢身相，猶如虛空" / "曠願" — chunks:11826, 11845. [^5]: 《大寶積經》(T0310): "若我不施汝，是則違本願" — chunk:19292. [^6]: 《大寶積經》(T0310): "菩薩本願殊特之所致" — chunk:12242. [^7]: 《大方廣佛華嚴經》(晉譯, T0278): "本願所持，不捨一切眾生、一切佛剎、一切諸法" — chunk:14702; cf. 唐譯 (T0279) "本願持故" — chunk:1399. [^8]: 《大寶積經》(T0310): re 彌勒 vs. 釋迦 — chunk:19293. [^9]: 《大方廣佛華嚴經》(T0278 / T0279): "當知本願力" — chunks:13176, 421. [^10]: 《大方廣佛華嚴經》(晉譯, T0278): "具足一切菩薩受生大願" / "本願力故" — chunk:16283. [^11]: 《大寶積經》(T0310): re 密迹金剛 — chunk:12299. [^12]: 《大寶積經》(T0310): re 吉安奉草 — chunk:12309. [^13]: 《大寶積經》(T0310) and 《華嚴經》: 大悲與本願 — chunks:19292, 19293. [^14]: 《大方廣佛華嚴經》(晉譯, T0278): "願及智所攝成" — chunk:16446; (唐譯, T0279) "菩薩願" / "願力" — chunk:2216. [^15]: 《大寶積經》(T0310): "本願善根力" / "本願功德" — chunks:14471, 14573.
Additional source: 《藥師琉璃光如來本願功德經》(T0450) — the Twelve Great Vows of the Medicine Master Buddha, illustrating 本願 as the *constitutive charter* of a Buddha's salvific activity in the world (health, freedom from fear, basic sustenance, dying without falling into evil destinies).