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muri [Nepali मुरी]

1

In Nepal, ? – 21st century, a unit of capacity = 20 pathi, about 87.2 liters. But see below for the muri as a unit of mass. (If the pathi = the imperial gallon, as Nepal reported to the United Nations in the mid-20ᵗʰ century, the muri was about 90.92 liters.)

Like the bushel and other capacity units used for agricultural commodities, in time the muri has tended to become a unit of mass. The ambiguity between capacity and mass is evident in the definition in a 2003 glossary:

weight measurement for cereals contained in a sack approximately 4 feet tall and 1 foot in diameter; approx 64 kg (one muri is equivalent to 20 pathis)¹

That the muri is still being used as a unit of capacity is shown by researchers' giving various masses for the muri, as the table shows. As a unit of mass, the muri is conventionally 72 kilograms (about 160 pounds).

Also romanized as murhi and moori.

Mass of 1 *muri* of various grains
Commodity	Sources
Commodity	Note 2 (kg)	Note 3 (kg)	Note 4 (kg)
paddy	52.5	—	50
rice	—	50	68.6
millet	63.31	62	67.3
maize	72.7	68	—
wheat	63.2	68	67.3
grams	—	66	—
barley	—	—	67.3

1. Glossary.
Voices from the Mountain: Nepal.
London: Panos London, 2003.

2. Jaggannath Adhikari.
Mobility and agrarian change in central Nepal.
Contributions to Nepalese Studies, July 2001.

3. D. R. Chapa, A. Poudyal, H. Qwist-Hoffman and F. M. J. Ohler.
Inter-regional project for participatory upland conservation and development. Nepal. Participatory rural appraisal and planning in the Bhusunde Khola watershed from October 1995 to January 1966.
TCO: GCP/INT/542/ITA
Gorkha: Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N., May 1997.

4. Donald A. Messerschmidt.
Dhikurs: Rotating credit associations in Nepal.
in
James F. Fisher, editor.
Himalayan Anthropology: the Indo-Tibetan Interface.
The Hague: Mouton, 1978.

Footnote, page 148.

The value given for the muri in Ruth Laila Schmidt's A Practical Dictionary of Modern Nepali, “a measure of weight equal to 2 paathii or approximately 16 pounds” (page 528) appears to be in error through the accidental omission of a zero. It would be very helpful if someone in Nepal would find, date and measure some old 1-muri sacks, and report the results.

2

The muri mato is a unit of land area in the Terai of Nepal, = 4 dhur, about 65.56 square meters.

sources

...and 60 muri of land which amounted to 82,140 square feet...

Tanka Bahadur Subba.
Politics of Culture: A Study of Three Kirata Communities in the Eastern Himalayas.
Orient Blackswan, 1999.
Page 33.

1 muri = 0.013 ha

Rice Almanac 2002.