Khanda meaning
The khanda is the Sikh emblem: a double-edged sword, a circle, and two kirpans. It holds temporal and spiritual authority together. It is not a weapon diagram for its own sake.
Two sovereignties, held together and not sheathed.
The name. Khanda, the double-edged sword used in the amrit ceremony.
Where it comes from
The central double-edged sword, the chakkar (a circular throwing weapon, also read as continuity), and two kirpans at the sides. The standard reading takes the side swords as miri and piri — temporal and spiritual authority — a distinction associated with Guru Hargobind and inherited by the Khalsa of Guru Gobind Singh. As a single graphic standard it firms up in the twentieth century, especially in the diaspora. The objects are older than the logo.
Sikh
Neither sword put away
Miri and piri are not “religion and politics” in a modern split where one of them is supposed to apologize for existing. The emblem’s claim is that the community answers in both registers, and that dropping either is a failure. The circle keeps them from flying apart.
Sikh
Do not backdate the drawing
A seventeenth-century nihang and a twentieth-century letterhead can both be truthful without being the same object. When you date a khanda, date the arrangement you are looking at, not only the weapons inside it.
Near this
Sources
- Sikh emblematic practice; the khanda as a sword is older than the modern composite emblem
Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.
Your margin
Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.
symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 2 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.