This discourse has more parallels than any other Majjhima sutta: six in Chinese, two in Tibetan, two in Sanskrit, and fragments in Khotanese, Sogdian, and Tocharian. Its popularity is due to the detailed yet straightforward way it connects deeds with results, a subject of perennial fascination.

This phrase is also explained at AN 10.216. In AN 5.57 it is one of five sayings that should be frequently recollected by “a woman or a man, a layperson or a renunciate”.

The phrase “some woman or man” is used only here and in a few suttas that also deal with kamma (AN 3.70, AN 8.42, AN 8.43, AN 8.45). The mention of “woman or man” undercuts assumptions that women lack agency, or that their rebirth is lesser.

Rebirth in the human realm is always due to good deeds in the past, but while in this realm, bad kamma can take effect. Of course, not all afflictions are caused by past kamma, a doctrine of the Jains that the Buddha rejected.

A reason for one of the Buddha’s marks (DN 30:2.7.2).

A person with a “mind like an open sore” (AN 3.25:1.6).

The text switches from vaṇṇavanta (“beautiful”, MN 135:3.4) to pāsādika (“lovely”).

Also at AN 4.197:6.5.

Also in AN 4.197 and AN 10.177.

The first three of these, phrased a little differently, are found at Pvr 7:51.1.

This is the duty of a wheel-turning monarch (DN 26:5.6), as well as being a reason for one of the Buddha’s marks (DN 30:1.25.3).

He went for refuge first in MN 99:28.4 and subsequently in DN 10:2.37.9.