As a unified graphic the Khanda is relatively modern, reaching something like its standardised form only in the twentieth century, though sources disagree on exactly when: some place the settled design in the first decade of the century, pointing to a photograph taken at Amritsar in January 1906 that carries one of its earliest recognisable appearances, while others put it as late as the 1930s. The designer of the first modern version is unknown, and the older emblems it eventually displaced stayed in use alongside it for years, so its adoption was a gradual drift rather than a decreed change. It now appears at the centre of the Nishan Sahib, the saffron triangular flag flown at every gurdwara, itself replaced in a formal rite each year at Vaisakhi, when the old cloth is lowered, the flagpole washed with yogurt and water, and a new Nishan Sahib raised. Its components are older still: the khanda sword features in the amrit sanchar, the initiation of the Khalsa instituted by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699, in which sweetened water is stirred with a double-edged sword while scripture is recited.
The emblem should not be confused with the Ik Onkar, the opening words of the Guru Granth Sahib, a separate and older written sign of the one God. Today the Khanda functions internationally as the visual shorthand for Sikh identity, printed on turban pins, key fobs and diaspora institutions, much as a cross or crescent serves other faiths, a statement of a tradition that refuses to divide devotion from the readiness to defend it.