[2] Its purpose was to spread Gaudiya Vaishnavism, the philosophy of the medieval Vaisnava saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, through preaching and publishing.

From the beginning of Chaitanya's bhakti movement in Bengal, devotees, including Haridasa Thakur and others, whether Muslim or Hindu by birth, have been participants.

This openness and disregard for the traditional caste received a boost from the "broad-minded vision" of Bhaktivinoda Thakura,[3] a nineteenth-century magistrate and prolific writer on bhakti topics, and was institutionalised by his son and successor Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura in the twentieth-century Gaudiya Math.

Soon after the Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati's death (1 January 1937), a dispute began and the original Gaudiya Math mission divided by the court in 1948 into two administrative bodies which continued preaching on their own, up to the present day.

Gaudiya Mission[7] were headed by Ananta Vasudev Prabhu, who became known as Srila Bhakti Prasad Puri Maharaj after accepting sannyasa for short duration.