[Advaita-l] Apaurusheyatva

[Siddhartha Annapureddy]

Namaste all,
     I have a few questions on Apaurusheyatva. Could some of you clarify
these issues? Thanks.

-- What does it mean to say Apaurusheyatva (lack of an author)? Consider
this story about how Yajnavalkya "rebelled" against Vaisampayana, and
acquired the Sukla Yajur Veda from Surya Deva.

-- All we know is that Yajnavalkya turns up one day, and claims to have
discovered more of the Vedas. How do people judge it to be really Veda? Is
it by the merit of the shlokas that they were given the status of Shruti? If
a realized person today were to come up with some more such shlokas, would
they be considered Veda? Is there some internal reference in the Vedas
themselves that there shall be no more Veda?

-- Also, with regard to the discovery of the Veda itself, here are a few
possibilities. Firstly, there
might indeed be a Surya Deva who taught Yajnavalkya. Personally, I do not
believe in such kind of
extra-terrestrial entities (at any rate, not of the kind where people could
have conversed with them
thousands of years ago). Is that what people mostly believe, just curious?
Another possibility which
appeals to me is that Yajnavalkya might have obtained these verses under
inspiration. In which case, people knew Yajnavalkya was the author of the
Sukla Yajur Veda. How then is it Apaurusheyatva? For example, you could say
Einstein obtained relativity under inspiration. We recognize him to be the
author, and credit him as such (though probably, the theory of relativity is
always all around us waiting to be discovered by everyone). So, here's my
question, how exactly do we characterize Apaurusheyatva?

A.Siddhartha.