Khanda
The Two Sovereignties
Sovereignty held whole: devotion and worldly duty as one obligation, with protection owed to the defenceless.
Three elements compose the Khanda. At the centre is the double-edged sword that names it, the type of blade used to stir the amrit at the founding of the Khalsa in 1699. Around it sits the chakkar, a steel throwing quoit, its circle standing for a God without beginning or end. The two outer kirpans are Miri and Piri, temporal and spiritual authority, recalling the two swords Guru Hargobind took up in 1606. The parts are old; the combination is not, settling into its present form in the first decade of the twentieth century. Unicode encoded it in 1993 at U+262C as ADI SHAKTI, a name from outside mainstream Sikh usage, and added a second character named KHANDA at U+1FAAF in 2022.
Light
Stands for sovereignty held whole: devotion and worldly responsibility as one obligation rather than two. Carries the Khalsa duty of service, protection, and defence of those who cannot defend themselves.
Shadow
The emblem can harden into a badge of identity worn apart from the discipline it stands for, a hollowness Sikh teaching itself warns against. Those unfamiliar with it read its blades as belligerence rather than as a duty to protect.
