Guru Nanak Founds Sikhism
A teacher near Lahore preaches one God beyond Hindu and Muslim labels, and starts a new religion
Quick facts
- Founder
- Guru Nanak
- Born
- 1469, near Lahore
- Core teaching
- Devotion to one God, rejection of caste
- Holiest shrine
- The Golden Temple, Amritsar
What happened
In the Punjab, where Hindu and Muslim worlds met and rubbed against each other under Muslim rule, Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion, was born in 1469 near Lahore. He taught devotion to one formless God, rejected caste distinctions and empty ritual, and drew followers from both Hindu and Muslim backgrounds. His teachings passed through a line of successor Gurus, and the community he began, the Sikhs, grew into a distinct religion with its own scripture and, later, its holiest shrine at Amritsar. The Victoria and Albert Museum's collections identify him simply as the first Sikh Guru and the founder of the Sikh's religion.
Why it matters
Sikhism became one of the world's major religions and a defining presence in the Punjab, and its egalitarian rejection of caste offered an alternative to the social order around it. The faith Nanak founded would later become a political and military power and, in the twentieth century, a community torn across the partition line.
How we know
Guru Nanak's founding role is recorded in Sikh scripture and tradition and documented by museum collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, which holds portraits and depictions identifying him as the founder of the religion.
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum. Guru Nanak with followers · Primary source (author-declared)collections.vam.ac.uk · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Victoria and Albert Museum. Guru Nanak (painting, Lahore, c. 1850-1870) · Primary source (author-declared)collections.vam.ac.uk · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match).
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