Muhurta
48 minutes (two ghati), one thirtieth of a day. A muhurta is an auspicious window used to pick the time of ceremonies.
1 muhurta = 2,880 seconds (exactly).
About the muhurta
Muhurta comes from Sanskrit and is explained as muhu, a moment, joined to rta, cosmic order, so the word points to the daily echo of the natural order. The Rigveda uses it only to mean a moment. Later Brahmana texts fixed it at one thirtieth of a day, or 48 minutes, and the Mahabharata states that thirty muhurtas make up a day and night.
The sources do not fully agree. One passage of the Shatapatha Brahmana gives a fifteenth of a day instead of a thirtieth, and Wikipedia says Svetambar Jain samayik vows use one or two muhurtas that it equates with forty minutes. The figure used here is the 48-minute muhurta, equal to two ghatis, and the Manusmriti builds it up from smaller steps of kala and kashtha.
In practice a muhurta is a window chosen by an astrologer as favourable for a wedding, a house entry or a new business. Wikipedia's table assumes a 6:00 sunrise and gives each of the thirty slots a quality, with the Brahma muhurta falling from 4:24 to 5:12 and regarded as good for yoga and meditation.
Sources: Wikipedia: Muhurta; Wikipedia: Hindu units of time
Muhurta conversion chart
1 muhurta expressed in every other time unit:
| Unit | 1 muhurta |
|---|---|
| Seconds | 2,880 |
| Minutes | 48 |
| Hours | 0.8 |
| Days | 0.03333333333 |
| Weeks | 0.004761904762 |
| Months | 0.001095162803 |
| Years | 0.0000912635669 |
| Milliseconds | 2,880,000 |
| Microseconds | 2,880,000,000 |
| Nanoseconds | 2,880,000,000,000 |
| Decades | 0.00000912635669 |
| Centuries | 9.12635669×10⁻⁷ |
| Millennia | 9.12635669×10⁻⁸ |
| Picoseconds | 2.88×10¹⁵ |
| Common Years | 0.00009132420091 |
| Leap Years | 0.00009107468124 |
| Julian Years | 0.0000912616929 |
| Tropical Years | 0.00009126364436 |
| Sidereal Years | 0.00009126010307 |
| Synodic Months | 0.001128773023 |
| Sidereal Days | 0.03342459699 |
| Aeons | 9.12635669×10⁻¹⁴ |
| Shakes | 288,000,000,000 |
| Fortnights | 0.002380952381 |
| Score | 0.000004563178345 |
| Lustra | 0.00001825271338 |
| Olympiads | 0.00002281589172 |
| Indictions | 0.000006084237793 |
| Jubilees | 0.000001825271338 |
| Ghati | 2 |
| Prahar | 0.2666666667 |
| Shichen | 0.4 |
| Moments | 32 |
| Ship's Watches | 0.2 |
| Kin (Maya) | 0.03333333333 |
| Winals | 0.001666666667 |
| Tun (Maya) | 0.00009259259259 |
| Katuns | 0.00000462962963 |
| Baktuns | 2.314814815×10⁻⁷ |
More Indian subcontinent units
- ghati (time)
- prahar (time)
- tola (weight & mass)
- seer (weight & mass)
- maund (weight & mass)
- guntha (area)
- cent (India) (area)
- marla (area)
- kanal (area)
- lakh (counting & quantity)
- crore (counting & quantity)
- arab (Indian) (counting & quantity)
- kharab (Indian) (counting & quantity)
Browse all time units.