What the connections of sacredness with valour and identity in the Sikh tradition reveal An excerpt from ‘When Does History Begin? Religion, Narrative and Identity in the Sikh Tradition’, by Harjot Oberoi. 11 hours ago Guru Gobind Singh (pictured left) decided to make the Guru Granth Sahib the eternal future Guru of the Sikhs. | Public domain Holiness, a fundamental concern of religions, is a concept difficult to define. Broadly speaking, it seems a compound of notions drawn from folk belief and mythology, theology and eschatology, and ideas of salvation and sacredness. The concept endows individuals, texts, times, places, institutions, and communities with a distinctly powerful hold over the human mind and emotions, making it distinguishable from others in circulation within civil society.