Nalanda vs Avanti observatory
"What if earth & the heavenly bodies are in free fall?"
Buddhist astronomers
"We are not falling! It is the property of the earth to attract objects & to remain in place without falling"
Bhaskara II
When Hindus & Buddhist had healthy competition..

If we repeat the Buddhist thought experiment, we arrive at a model where the heavenly bodies are spiraling downwards around a free falling earth. This means, irrespective of mass, all bodies fall at the same rate. Galileo was not the first, then, to arrive at this conclusion.

Bhaskara, in the Śiromaṇi, goes on to repeat the mistake of 'Heavier bodies fall faster' in order to counter the Buddhists. But he didn't have to do that. He was so close to universal gravitation! He already knew that Gravity attracts bodies *and* prevents free fall in space.

He only needed to extend his Gurutva one last step-Why are these planets moving at all? Bhaskara had to assume a cosmic 'pravaha wind' was pushing these planets. Only 500 years later would Newton admit the same force was causing all three-attraction, fixed orbits & revolution.

Now the million dollar question- If Gallio, Kepler and Newton had access to this rich body of Siddhantic literature(we have evidence), how much did it influence them?