Bir Bhan (1543–?), also spelt Birbhan, was a Dalit religious leader who was the founder of the first Satnami movement.^[1] He was a contemporary of Dadu and was influenced by Ravidas.^[1][2] He was the disciple of Uda Das.

Bir Bhan was born in Bijesar near Narnaul in 1543.^[1][3][4] Bir Bhan had been influenced by Kabirpanth.^[5] According to an account of the Satnamis recorded by H. H. Wilson, Bir Bhan received a divine message from a satguru named Udaidas.^[6] As per Madan Gopal Gupta, Udai was a disciple of Ravidas and Bir Bhan became a disciple of Udai.^[3] Bir Bhan was a monotheist who used the moniker satnam for the divine, rejecting idolatry and casteism. He believed that meditation and living an honest-life was a way to experience unity with divinity.^[1] Some sources claim Bir Bhan died in 1620.^[3]

Bir Bhan founded the Satnampanth at Narnaul in present-day Haryana on 21 April 1657.^{[note 1][7][5]} Most of the followers of his sect drew from the Chamar caste. Followers of the sect refused to observe caste, were anti-authoratarian, and against the rich. Mughal historian Khafi Khan estamated that the Satnamis consisted of four or five thousand agricultural and mercantile families in the Narnaul and Mewat regions.^[5] In 1672, the movement rebelled against the Mughals in Punjab and Haryana (principally at Narnaul and Bairat) regarding taxation and were defeated, with the sect being nearly destroyed under Aurangzeb.^[7][5] Survivors of the sect may have contributed to the formulation of the later Sadh sect.^[8][9] Later Satnami revivalist leaders were Jagjivandas in Uttar Pradesh and Ghasidas in Chhattisgarh.^[7]