[saberdancer]

Your butter is probably modern factory made kind, which is pasteurized. It can last much longer than "natural" butters of old.

Same applies to milk. My parents used to boil milk up until 20 years ago, mostly because they grew up in households with cows and they boiled milk to kill bacteria. It took me years of showing them the label "Does not need to be boiled" to get them to drop the habit.

[OJFord]

Ah yes, good point. I assume modern (commercial) ghee is too, but that certainly makes preservation origins make more sense. Thanks.

[xyzzyz]

Because ghee manufacturing process involves boiling water out of the butter, it is rather irrelevant whether the milk has been initially pasteurized.