He was born into a Hindu family in a village near Lahore. Many Sikhs believe that he was in a state of enlightenment at birth and that he was destined from then to be God’s messenger. He learned about both Hinduism and Islam as a child, and at the age of 30 he underwent a religious experience which prompted him to become a wandering preacher. He eventually settled in Kartarpur, in what is now Punjab province, Pakistan; there he built the first Sikh temple. Nanak sought neither to unite the Hindu and Muslim faiths nor to create a new religion, preaching rather that spiritual liberation could be achieved through practising an inward and disciplined meditation on the name of God. His teachings are contained in a number of hymns which form part of the principal sacred scripture of Sikhism, the Adi Granth.