Story of Sikhism

Nanak at the river.

Three days vanished, then: there is no Hindu, there is no Muslim — the founding refusal of the boundary.

Where it is toldThe janamsakhis — the birth stories

Who appearsNanak and the river Bein

What it teachesThere is no Hindu, there is no Muslim — the founding sentence of Sikh universalism

Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Nanak disappeared into a river while bathing and was presumed drowned; three days later he returned and said, after a long silence, "There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim." The line has been read two ways — as a claim that the categories are empty before God, and as an observation that neither community was actually living its faith — and Sikh commentators generally hold both. What followed was two decades of travel, reportedly as far as Mecca and Tibet, arguing with religious professionals of every kind.

From the sources — the passages this rests on; concise renderings, cited

There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim.
Attributed to Guru Nanak (rendered)
The first sentence of the tradition, spoken after three days' silence.

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