Nanak (1469–c. 1539)

Indian guru and founder of Sikhism, a religion based on the unity of God and the equality of all human beings. He was strongly opposed to caste divisions.

Greatly influenced by Islamic mysticism (Sufism), Nanak preached a new path of release from the Hindu cycle of rebirth and caste divisions through sincere meditation on the name of God. He is revered by Sikhs (‘disciples’) as the first of their ten gurus (religious teachers). At 50, after many years travelling and teaching, he established a new town in the Punjab called Kartarpur, where many people came to live as his disciples. On his deathbed, Guru Nanak announced his friend Lehna as his successor, and gave him the name Angad (‘part of me’).

Nanak was born near Lahore, in the Punjab, to a Hindu family in an area deeply divided between Muslims and Hindus. He trained to be an accountant like his father, but found himself increasingly interested in matters of religious and social concern, and became attracted to a life of prayer and meditation. At about the age of 30, while bathing in a river, he underwent a conversion experience, during which he felt that he was taken up to God, who gave him amrit (sweetened water) to drink, and spoke to him. There were fears that he had drowned, but he returned after three days. At first unable to speak, his first words were: ‘There is neither Hindu nor Muslim, so whose path shall I follow? I shall follow God's path. God is neither Hindu nor Muslim and the path that I follow is God's.’

Before settling in Kartarpur, Nanak travelled round India and other countries preaching a message of the equality of all people, irrespective of birth, caste, gender, or religion. He taught that there is only one God, whatever he is called by the different faiths, that the goal of all is to be absorbed into God, and that people should live a life of service to others.