Guru Nanak

Guru Nanak (1469–1539) was the Punjabi mystic and poet honoured as the founder of Sikhism and the first of its ten gurus. Born at Talwandi into a Hindu family, he worked at a storehouse in Sultanpur and married in 1487. Around 1496, tradition says, he vanished in the Bein river and was given up for drowned; days later he returned saying only, ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim.’

He left his post and travelled for seventeen years on tours reaching Varanasi, Assam, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Mecca and Baghdad. He taught Ik Onkar, one God dwelling in all creation, and rejected caste.

He later settled at Kartarpur, where followers ate together at the common kitchen, the langar. His 974 hymns stand in the Guru Granth Sahib. Passing over his own sons, he named Bhai Lehna as Guru Angad, and died at Kartarpur on 22 September 1539.