Note 3 — Chapter IX · SOO-HO-TO. LEGEND OF BUDDHA.
James Legge translation
The Chinese character is 昔, ‘formerly,’ and is often, as in the first sentence of the narrative, simply equivalent to that adverb. At other times it means, as here, ‘in a former age,’ some pre-existent state in the time of a former birth. The incident related is ‘a Jâtaka story.’