Adi Shakti

It is the Khanda, the main emblem of Sikhism.

Sikhism is a religion founded by Guru Nanak in the fifteenth century in Punjab, a region now split between India and Pakistan. It teaches one God, equality of all people, honest work and service to others. Many Sikhs wear a turban and keep their hair uncut; most live in India, with large communities in Britain, Canada and the United States. Their place of worship is the gurdwara, and outside almost every one stands a tall flag, the Nishan Sahib, which usually bears the Khanda.

The emblem has three parts. The central double-edged sword, the khanda that gives the whole its name, stands for divine knowledge that cuts truth from falsehood. The circle, the chakkar, is God without beginning or end. The two curved swords on the outside are kirpans and stand for miri and piri, worldly and spiritual authority held together: a Sikh should be both devout and ready to defend justice.

The paired swords go back to Guru Hargobind in the seventeenth century, who wore two swords to show that teaching. The combined emblem as you see it today came together much later: it is documented from the early twentieth century, on a Sikh warrior's turban in a 1905 photograph and on a 1911 flyer for a gurdwara in Vancouver, Canada. No single designer is known; the design grew out of older flag and weapon motifs.

What does it mean when someone sends ☬?

Sikh pride, a Sikh festival, or solidarity with Sikhs, not a threat.

Often the sender is Sikh and the symbol says so, the way a cross or a crescent does for others: next to a name, in a bio, at the end of a greeting. Around Vaisakhi in April, the harvest festival and the founding day of the Khalsa, the order of initiated Sikhs, and around Gurpurabs, the anniversaries of the Gurus' births and deaths, it appears in holiday wishes. After news involving Sikhs, people of many backgrounds post it as support. A tattoo or car sticker of it usually means the same as the text symbol: identity, not aggression. The swords are the part newcomers misread; in Sikh teaching they stand for truth, justice and protecting the weak, with force only as a last resort.