Khanda (Religious Icon)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Khanda (Punjabi: ਖੰਡਾ, khaṇḍā) is one of most important symbols of Sikhism (a religion that has over 23 million followers and was founded in the sixtenth century by Guru Gobind Singh Ji). Its importance is emphasized by the fact that many Sikh flags, including the Nishan Sahib have the Khanda on them. It is a collection of four weapons commonly used by Sikhs at the time of Guru Gobind Singh.

The weapons are:

• A double-edged sword called a Khanda sits in the middle.
• A Chakkar is a circular weapon that surrounds the Khanda
• Two daggers, or kirpans are crossed at the bottom and sit on either side of the Khanda and Chakkar. They represent the dual nature/duties of the Gurus, Miri and Piri.

The weapons have symbolic meanings. The Khanda symbolises knowledge of God, the Chakkar symbolizes the oneness of God, Miri means political sovereignty and Piri means spiritual sovereignty.

The Khanda is an important emblem in Sikhism and can be compared to the Cross to Christians, or the Star of David to Jews.

The current flag of Iran bears an emblem which is visually similar to a Khanda, but is not supposed to be referential to Sikhism. This has given credence to long standing rumors that Ayatollah Khomeni (who personally authorized this flag) explicitly borrowed this from Sikhism. There is a very established family in the Majha region of Punjab that has always claimed that the Ayatollah spent part of his childhood there.

The symbol is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at codepoint U+262C (☬).

[edit] External link

• Khanda