Guru Nanak Dev ( Punjabi: ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਦੇਵ, Gurū Nānak Dēv; (15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539), was the founder of Sikhism and the first of the ten Gurus of the Sikhs. He is revered not only by Sikhs, but also by Hindus and Muslims in the Punjab and across the Indian subcontinent. His primary message to society was recorded to be "devotion of thought and excellence of conduct as the first of duties".

Sikh tradition states that at the age of thirty, Nanak went missing and was presumed to have drowned after going for one of his morning baths to a local stream called the Kali Bein. Three days later he reappeared and would give the same answer to any question posed to him: "There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim" (in Punjabi, "nā kō hindū nā kō musalmān"). It was from this moment that Nanak would begin to spread the teachings of what was then the beginning of Sikhism.