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The other-power in a pure-land doctrine indicates the original vow of Amitabha. So called the original vow concept or so called the original vow doctrine does not arise from Mahayana Buddhism. Its origination can be observed from an ancient thought of India too. And also we can find out its origination from an ancient Buddhism as well as Many-schools Buddhism. Especially, it is observed that the evolutionary transformation of Many-schools Buddhism Buddhism's initial thought into the Mahayana Buddhism's original vow.
Then, we can observe the similar type of the original vow concepts from both ancient Buddhism and Many-schools Buddhism, comparing to that of the Mahayana Buddhism.
Those are, however, not identical to that of the Mahayana Buddhism. First of all, there is a big difference between Mahayana Buddhism's bodhisattva concept and that of an ancient Buddhism as well as Many-schools Buddhism. For both ancient and Many-schools Buddhism, they stipulated a previous existence of Shakyamuni Buddha as a bodhisattva. But they did not accept any other existence as a bodhisattva.
Secondly, we can not observe the special explanations about the pure land of Buddha from ancient as well as Many-schools Buddhism to the extent of what the Mahayana Buddhism provided. Then, we can find out that there are not ample contents of the original vow from ancient as well as Many-schools Buddhism.
We can find out the peak of the original vow doctrine from the 48 vows written in the Immeasurable Bliss Sutra. The Immeasurable Bliss Sutra shows the super natural power of Tathagata in its introduction part already. And it indicates the obvious aspect that sentient beings should be only sentient beings. There is, however, Tathagata's great grief vow to save all sentient beings behind the aforementioned statement.
The original vow doctrine shows the Tathagata's great grief power which is established by awakened compassion and wisdom of Shakyamuni Buddha. And then it turns out to be concrete feature representation such as the Amitabha's original vow. If this is the manifestation of Tathagata's great grief power, human beings are to be saved when they only happen to rely on the Amitabha's original vow. The sentient beings do not have the salvation cause but Tathagata has it. Wonhyo pointed out such fact and stated following way “Everybody talks about the Birth in the Pure Land. However, human beings do not have the sufficient ability to be an Amitabha and give a birth to the Pure Land. It is only
possible to enter into the world of Buddha if and only if the sentient beings happen to rely on the mystic function of Tathagata's original vow power. It can not be accomplished by the power of one's own karmic cause only.”
The original vow is the pure life as well as the absolute worth that can provide a faith and a relief at the bottom of desperate situation for the sentient beings. Sentient beings are unawakened and powerless in front of truth. But the tathagata's original vow is to embrace such state of sentient beings unconditionally. Signification of the original vow comes to exist clearly when sentient beings have a faith in the tathagata's original vow and take a rest upon it. It happens to understand the pure-land doctrine when someone takes a step into the other-power world without accepting the self-power.