Author

Guru Nānak

Founder of the Sikh tradition and first of the ten Gurus.

1469–1539

Also known as Guru Nanak Dev, Bābā Nānak

Biography

Guru Nānak was born in 1469 at Talwandi, near Lahore in the Punjab, now Nankana Sahib in Pakistan, to a Hindu family of the Khatri caste. The janam-sākhīs, collections of stories of his life written down after his death, describe a child absorbed in questions about God. As a young man he worked for the governor at Sultanpur, where, according to tradition, he disappeared while bathing in a river, and after three days returned with the words: there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim.

He then spent many years travelling, accompanied by the Muslim musician Mardana, singing his hymns. The janam-sākhīs tell of journeys throughout India and as far as Mecca and Baghdad, though the details are uncertain. In his later years he founded the settlement of Kartarpur, on the Ravi river, where a community lived by work, worship and shared meals.

Before his death in 1539 he appointed his disciple Angad, rather than his own sons, as his successor, beginning the line of ten Gurus. His hymns, including the Japjī, which opens the Guru Granth Sahib, are recited daily by Sikhs.

Major works

The Sikh Religion: Its Gurus, Sacred Writings and AuthorsTranslation, tr. Max Arthur Macauliffe, 1909Macauliffe’s six volumes of lives of the Sikh Gurus and the bhagats, with translations of many of their hymns, including the Japjī, prepared with the help of Sikh scholars. For decades the main English source for the Sikh scriptures.

Philosophical ideas

Scholarship

There is one God, beyond all names and forms, present in all; God is reached not by ritual, caste or asceticism but by the remembrance of the Name and the Guru’s grace.

The spiritual life is lived in the world, as a householder: by remembering God, earning by honest work, and sharing with others; the root of separation from God is haumai, self-centredness.

Cite this entry

Chicago (bibliography): “Guru Nānak.” Author. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/guru-nanak.
Chicago (note): “Guru Nānak,” author, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/guru-nanak.
MLA: “Guru Nānak.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/guru-nanak.
BibTeX: @misc{authors-guru-nanak, title = {{Guru Nānak}}, howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society}, note = {Author. Last modified November 7, 2026}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/guru-nanak} }

Related authors

Influenced: Guru Arjan
Often compared with: Kabīr

Related concepts

Related traditions

SikhismReligionThe religion founded by Guru Nānak in the Punjab, devoted to the one God and the Guru’s word.