The Khanda is the principal emblem of the Sikh faith, a composite of four elements: a central double-edged straight sword (the khanda that names the symbol), a circle (the chakkar), and two curved swords (kirpans) crossed at the base. The double-edged blade is read as divine knowledge that separates truth from falsehood; the chakkar, a weapon that is a perfect circle with neither beginning nor end, as the eternity and oneness of God. The two flanking kirpans stand for miri and piri, temporal and spiritual authority, a pairing traced to the sixth Guru, Hargobind.
After the execution of his father, Guru Arjan, under the Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1606, Hargobind is said to have taken up two swords at his own installation, one for worldly rule and one for religious leadership, declaring that the Guru's authority could not be confined to spiritual matters alone. The chakkar itself was a real weapon in Punjab before it became doctrine, a steel quoit worn on a warrior's turban or wrist and thrown or used as a slashing edge in close combat, which is part of why it reads naturally as a circle that is also armed. The kirpan is not only emblematic: it is one of the five articles of faith, the panj kakar, that an initiated Khalsa Sikh is enjoined to wear on the body at all times, so the crossed swords at the base of the Khanda point to an obligation carried in daily life rather than to history alone.