Underlying the depiction of [the Buddha named] Victorious through Great Penetrating Knowledge (Mahābhijnā-jnānābhibhū) is a threefold meaning. First, because Victorious through Great Penetrating Knowledge also preached the three and the One, in that order, it lends support to and completes the present preaching. Second, the five hundred disciples and the great multitude were previously in the place of Victorious through Great Penetrating Knowledge and were converted by Śākyamuni. The story of what happened to Śākyamuni [in the past] is certain to lead beings to believe that [achievements made] in earlier times help one to accomplish awakening now. Third, it means that the boundary of [the realm of] birth and death is so remote, and the Great Path (Tao) is so dark and distant, that [the Buddha] urgently devised the two vehicles, which are symbolized in the parable of the conjured city.

“A countless, limitless, inconceivable, asaṃkhya number of kalpas ago, there lived a Buddha called Great-Universal-Wisdom-Excellence {Victorious through Great Penetrating Knowledge}

[What the Buddha] said here, that [that] Buddha passed into extinction a long time ago, is intended to express that Śākyamuni reflects on the remote past as if he had thought of it today, in order to prove that the li he is now preaching is deep and proper.