The Jatakas are how Buddhism is actually transmitted to most of the people who hold it. Each tale is a previous life of the Buddha-to-be, usually as an animal or a minor king, demonstrating one perfection — generosity, patience, resolve — with a tag at the end identifying who in the story became whom. They absorbed a great deal of pre-Buddhist Indian folklore on the way, which is why versions of several turn up in Aesop and the Panchatantra. In Southeast Asia the Vessantara Jataka is recited in full at an annual festival that can take a day; the walls of Ajanta, Borobudur and every village temple in Thailand are covered in them.