It’s one of the most famous stories in scientific history, but Sir Isaac Newton ’s encounter with an apple may not have led to the discovery of gravity, an Indian Minister has claimed.

Ramesh Pokhriyal, the Minister for Human Resource Development, claims that Indian mathematicians discovered gravity ‘centuries before Newton.’

Speaking at an event last week, Mr Pokhriyal urged the Indian Institutes of Technology and National Institutes of Technology to undertake more research on ancient Indian science.

According to The Print, he said: “We need to prove that all that we keep talking about like Charaka, Aryabhata, they all existed and that our scriptures mentioned the concept of gravity much before Newton discovered it.”

Charaka lived in the 3rd century BC, and was one of the principal contributors to Ayurveda, a system of medicine and lifestyle developed in Ancient India.

Meanwhile, Aryabhata, who was born in 476 CE, was the first of the major mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy.

While both scholars are known to have contributed to several scientific and mathematical discoveries, this is the first time that it’s been claimed that they discovered gravity.

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