---
type: Concept
bundle: jyotisha-kala
bundle_version: 0.12.0
id: muhurta
title: Muhūrta
iast: Muhūrta
devanagari: मुहूर्त
description: 'Both the unit (one-thirtieth of a day-night, about 48 minutes, two ghaṭikās) and the electional discipline of choosing a qualified time for an undertaking; NOT a vague moment, NOT an outcome guarantee, NOT shubh-muhurat sales copy.'
darshana:
- Jyotiṣa
text_source: Muhūrta Cintāmaṇi; Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa
reception_note: 'Muhūrta selection is a major commercial surface (wedding-date services, shubh-muhurat content). This file documents the unit and the classical electional discipline; it does not claim that elected times produce outcomes.'
tags:
- muhurta
- time-unit
- election
- calendrics
- jyotisha
not:
- term: 'a vague moment'
  why: 'The muhūrta is a defined unit: thirty to the day-night, two ghaṭikās, about 48 minutes; the Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa already divides the day into thirty. “An auspicious moment” with no unit behind it erases the metrology.'
  instead: 'Render muhūrta as the 48-minute unit and, for the discipline, as election, keeping the Sanskrit term.'
- term: 'an outcome guarantee'
  why: 'The electional manuals codify which times qualify for which undertakings. Whether elected times produce outcomes is an empirical claim the manuals assert within their own frame and this corpus does not adjudicate. Documenting the rule system is not endorsing its efficacy.'
- term: 'shubh-muhurat sales copy'
  why: 'Commercial date-selection services compress a rule-governed classical discipline into a purchasable blessing. The discipline has named texts, named rules, and named exclusions; the sales copy has none of them.'
related:
- /concepts/kala-jyotisha.md
- /concepts/ghatika.md
- /concepts/panchanga.md
- /concepts/karana.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Muhūrta -- मुहूर्त

**Not:** a vague moment, an outcome guarantee, shubh-muhurat sales copy

## What It Actually Means

The muhūrta is first a unit: one-thirtieth of a day-night, 48 minutes, two ghaṭikās. On the unit stands the discipline of the same name: electing a qualified time for a named undertaking, marriage, travel, foundation-laying, upanayana, by codified rules over the pañcāṅga limbs, the lagna, and graha positions, systematized in manuals like the Muhūrta Cintāmaṇi. The discipline is old and internally rigorous. What this file asserts is vocabulary, a defined unit and a rule-governed selection practice built on it; what it does not assert is that the practice controls outcomes.

## Audience Metaphor

A day tiled in thirty 48-minute tiles; the electional discipline is choosing which tile to lay a foundation stone on, by written rules. What a tile IS is exact and computable. Whether choosing the right tile changes what the building becomes is a claim this corpus leaves to its sources.

## Citations

1. Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa dividing the day into thirty parts -- see [references/lagadha-vedanga-jyotisha.md](../references/lagadha-vedanga-jyotisha.md)
2. Muhūrta Cintāmaṇi as the standard electional manual -- see [references/muhurta-chintamani.md](../references/muhurta-chintamani.md)
