The bodhisattva ideal of great compassion – mahakaruna – found its greatest expression in Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, who is believed to have withheld personal deliverance to protect and help all others along the path. Representations of Avalokiteshvara in literature and art began appearing first in the Gandhara and Mathura regions of South Asia from the early centuries of the 1st millennium CE and next, wherever Buddhism travelled across Asia.