Guru Nanak (1469–1539), the first of the ten Sikh Gurus, was born at Rai Bhoi di Talwandi — now Nankana Sahib, Pakistan — near Lahore. After years of travel teaching a message of one God and human equality, he settled in the last part of his life at Kartarpur (“Creator's Town”) on the River Ravi, where he gathered the first community of disciples — Sikhs, “learners.”
Kartarpur and its institutions
At Kartarpur, Nanak worked the land and lived among his followers. Two practices established there became lasting pillars of Sikh life: langar, the free community kitchen where people of every caste and creed eat together as equals, and sangat, congregational worship through sung hymns. His lifelong companion Bhai Mardana, a Muslim, accompanied him on the rabab, a stringed instrument. (Caste — the hereditary social hierarchy of the region — was precisely what Nanak's common kitchen rejected.)
Succession
Before his death in 1539, Nanak chose a devoted disciple, Bhai Lehna — renamed Guru Angad — as his successor, rather than either of his sons, establishing the principle that spiritual leadership passed by merit. This model of a continuing Guruship would shape the community for the next two centuries, through the compilation of scripture to the founding of the Khalsa.
1469
Birth at Talwandi
Guru Nanak is born at Rai Bhoi di Talwandi, today Nankana Sahib, Pakistan.
c. 1500–1520s
The travels
Tradition describes long journeys (udasis) across and beyond the subcontinent; their itineraries come from the Janamsakhis.
c. 1520s–1539
The community at Kartarpur
Nanak settles on the Ravi; langar and sangat take institutional root.
1539
Succession by merit
Bhai Lehna becomes Guru Angad; the line of ten Gurus is under way.
Modern place-names
Talwandi is now Nankana Sahib, west of Lahore; the original Kartarpur is in Narowal District, Punjab, Pakistan, where Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur stands close enough to the Indian border to be visible across it. Both are major pilgrimage sites.