"Sometimes it is suggested that the emphasis on devotion as providing a special kind of salvation is unnatural in Buddhism and alien to the earlier tradition. Yet even the earliest form of Buddhism known to us taught that faith in the Buddha was able both to bring about a heavenly rebirth and to set one firmly on the path to liberation. The difference is in the Mahayana emphasis on the 'power of resolve' （other power） of a Buddha， which is capable of creating enormously favourable conditions."