Ramanuja, the
Srivaishnava theologian and religious leader of the
11th and
12th centuries, established this Mutt while coming to
Puri. It is said that Govindacharya was its first pontiff or , a brotherly cousin of Ramanuja, known for having saved him from
Yadavaprakasha's conspiracy. The monastery is named after a title given to Govinda by Ramanujacharya, Embar or Emar, a revised form of the locution ( ; « My Lord » in Tamil). It used to be one of the biggest and oldest mutts in Puri, belonging to the
Thengalai sect of the Srivaishnava
sampradaya. The monastery had great impacts on the history of the city and overall the region, notably through its large and generous social activities during the
Orissa famine of 1866. Biswanath Das (1911–1995) was one of the key figure associated with the Mutt and served the Mutt during Ramanuja II. A statesman and intellectual, he was an avid reader and had excellent command of Odia, Sanskrit and Bengali and is known to have read more than 1000 books that once were in the Mutt's Raghunandan library, the oldest library of Puri before it was demolished. People far from the Odisha state would visit him for consultation on legal matters. During his time with Mutt as an advisor which he served for more than 60 years, three Mahants were made in those six decades. He used to reside in Daitapara Sahi, Puri. ==Archaeology==