A Chaur Sahib is made from yak hair, horsehair or, historically in some regions, peacock feathers, bound into a handle of wood, silver or gold depending on what a gurdwara can provide, synthetic fiber having become a common modern substitute for the animal hair versions.
Borrowed from a symbol of kingship
The chaur descends directly from the royal fly whisk tradition found across South Asia, an object historically waved over kings as a mark of sovereignty, and its use over the Guru Granth Sahib deliberately signals the scripture's status as the living Guru, a sovereign rather than merely a book, carrying that older royal symbolism into a religious context.
Who waves it, and how it is maintained
Because Sikhism has no ordained priesthood, waving the Chaur Sahib during services is a seva, a volunteer service duty, performed by sevadars in rotation rather than restricted to any clergy class, treated as an honor rather than a formal office. A worn out chaur, its hair or fiber frayed past use, is simply rebound or replaced, and older examples of some age or craftsmanship are sometimes kept as historical pieces in a gurdwara's own collection rather than discarded.
Its size relative to the kirpan and khanda
Unlike the kirpan or the khanda, the Chaur Sahib carries no restriction on who may commission or own a smaller personal version, since the ceremonial handling restriction applies to its use in formal service rather than to the object's ownership generally, and gift shops near major gurdwaras sell small chaur reproductions with no such duty attached.