[2]In the Amitāyurdhyāna Sūtra, Buddha taught Ajātasattu's mother, Queen Videhi, that those who attain birth on the lowest level of the lowest grade are the sentient beings who commit such evils as the five gravest offenses, the ten evil acts and all kinds of immorality, when he is about to die, he may meet a good teacher, who consoles him in various ways, teaching him the wonderful Dharma and urging him to be mindful of the Buddha; but he is too tormented by pain to do so, so the good teacher then advises him to repeat nianfo ten times.
Because he calls the Buddha's name, with each repetition, the evil karma which he has committed during eighty kotis of kalpas of Samsara is extinguished.
The term pūrvapraṇidhāna typically refers to all the original vows made by a bodhisattva in order to develop bodhicitta and begin striving toward Buddhahood.
The founder of Jōdo-shū, Hōnen, emphasized the importance of the Primal Vow over the efficacy of practices espoused by his contemporaries in Tendai.
As in the vow, it applies not only to a dying person, death of self, but also to an animal,[6] or a ghost wandering or in hell,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] if he has accumulated enough merits in present or past lives,[19][20][21][22] and willing to go there.