ਖੰਡਾਖੰਡਾ

The Khanda is the emblem of the Sikh faith: a double-edged sword standing in a circle, flanked by two curved kirpans crossed below. It is printed on the Nishan Sahib flag, set in steel at the top of its pole, and seen on gurdwaras, books and jewellery across the world. In one sign it states the Sikh doctrines of Deg Tegh Fateh and of Miri Piri: feed everyone, protect the oppressed, and hold spiritual and worldly life in balance.

What is the Khanda?

The Khanda is the symbol of ਸਿੱਖ ਧਰਮ, and it takes its name from the weapon at its centre, the khanda, a double-edged sword. SikhiWiki counts it, with Ik Onkar, as one of the two main Sikh religious symbols, and its importance is easy to see: many Sikh flags, including the ਨਿਸ਼ਾਨ ਸਾਹਿਬ, carry the Khanda on them, and a steel Khanda crowns the Nishan Sahib pole as its finial. One honest point belongs at the start: the Khanda is never written in any copy of Guru Granth Sahib Ji. The symbol traditionally used in the scripture and in gurdwaras is Ik Onkar. The Khanda is the emblem of the Sikh community and of the Khalsa, worn and flown with pride, but it is not a letter of the sacred text.

What are the parts of the Khanda?

The emblem is an amalgam of three symbols, three weapons and a circle. In the centre stands the khanda itself, the double-edged sword: SikhiWiki explains it as the knowledge of God, a sword whose edge cleaves truth from falsehood, and other accounts read its two edges as divine justice on one side and freedom governed by moral and spiritual values on the other. Around the sword is the chakkar, a circular throwing weapon drawn as a plain circle: with no beginning and no end, it stands for the oneness and eternity of God, and for a justice and humanity that make one whole. On either side, crossed at the bottom, are two single-edged kirpans, the swords of Miri and Piri. Together the three parts say that truth stands at the centre, eternity surrounds it, and the swords of duty guard it from both sides.

What do Miri and Piri mean in the Khanda?

The two kirpans represent ਮੀਰੀ ਪੀਰੀ, the twin sovereignty taught by Guru Hargobind Ji, who wore two swords: Miri, temporal sovereignty and worldly responsibility, and Piri, spiritual sovereignty and devotion to God. The Khanda states the doctrine in emblematic form: the two are integrated together, not treated as two separate and distinct entities. A Sikh is not asked to choose between the world and the spirit. The same person who sits in prayer is expected to stand up for justice, earn honestly, and serve the community, and the same person who acts in the world is expected to remain centred on God. That balance, with the eternal circle and the sword of truth between the two kirpans, is the whole design: worldly power and spiritual authority held around one centre, neither swallowing the other.

How does the Khanda express Deg Tegh Fateh?

The Khanda also depicts, in emblematic form, the Sikh doctrine of ਦੇਗ ਤੇਗ਼ ਫ਼ਤਿਹ: victory to charity and arms. Deg is the cauldron, the great cooking pot of the langar, and it stands for the obligation to provide food to all people, irrespective of religion, caste or ethnicity. Tegh is the sword, and it stands for the companion obligation to provide protection for the needy and the oppressed. The Khanda icon conveys these two principles together, which is why it is described as the military emblem of the Sikhs: its weapons are not a threat but a promise, that the community which feeds everyone will also defend everyone. It is the emblem the ਖਾਲਸਾ ਪੰਥ carries into the world, charity in one hand and courage in the other.

When did the Khanda take its present form?

The weapons in the emblem are old, weapons commonly used by Sikhs at the time of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, but the combined emblem is much younger than the Gurus. An early form of the design survives on a Punjabi promotional flyer printed in Vancouver, Canada, in December 1911, advertising a celebration of the birthday of Guru Gobind Singh Ji. The Khanda attained its current form around the 1930s, during the Ghadar movement, the movement of Punjabi emigrants in North America who campaigned for India's freedom and carried the emblem as a sign of Sikh identity. One distinction is worth keeping: the Nihang Sikhs carry a related but different symbol, the aad chand, a khanda sword set in the middle of a crescent moon with its points upward. The aad chand is not the Khanda, and the two should not be confused.

Where is the Khanda seen today?

Today the Khanda is the public face of Sikh identity. It is printed in the middle of Sikh flags, embroidered on the Nishan Sahib, set over gurdwara doors, printed on book covers, and worn as a pendant by Sikhs of every age. In recent years it has also been used to show solidarity within the Sikh community after high-profile shootings in the United States, appearing at vigils and gatherings far from Punjab. The emblem has even entered the world's writing systems: it is encoded in Unicode at U+262C, under the name Adi Shakti, and a colour emoji version, U+1FAAF named Khanda, was added in Unicode 15.0 in 2022. Few religious emblems state their teaching as completely as this one does: look at the Khanda, and you have read the balance of truth, eternity, charity and courage that the Khalsa is asked to live.