McLeod is careful to keep Ik Onkar distinct from the Khanda, Sikhism's crossed-weapons emblem already recorded in this atlas, and the distinction is functional as much as visual. Ik Onkar is a theological assertion rendered as a written character, reproduced at the head of scripture, in gurdwara architecture and in devotional art as a statement of belief; the Khanda is the emblem of the Khalsa, the initiated Sikh community, built from actual weapon forms, a double-edged sword, a circular chakkar and two curved kirpans, and used on flags, insignia and initiation regalia to mark communal and martial identity rather than to state a proposition.
A visitor unfamiliar with Sikhism commonly conflates the two because both are widely reproduced and both are instantly recognizable as Sikh, but McLeod's account treats them as serving different registers of the tradition, one doctrinal and one communal, and this atlas keeps them as separate entries for the same reason. McLeod's account treats the two symbols together as a useful illustration of how a single tradition can hold a purely doctrinal emblem and a purely communal or martial one side by side without either displacing the other, each answering a different question a visible Sikh symbol is asked to answer, what is believed against who belongs.