Their name's meaning is "clever, skillful, inventive, prudent", cognate to Latin labor and Gothic arb-aiþs "labour, toil", and perhaps to English elf.
[3] Ribhus are depicted in some legends of the Vedic literature as three sons of the goddess of morning light named Saranyu and Hindu god Indra.
[1][4] In either legends, they are famous for their creative abilities, innovation and they design chariots, the magic cow of plenty, channels for rivers, and tools for Indra and other gods, which makes many envious.
[10] The Ribhus are artists who formed the horses of Indra, the carriage of the Ashvins, and the miraculous cow of Brihaspati, made their parents young, and performed other wonderful works which according to RV 4.51.6 were "done by the dawn".
[12] They are supposed to take their ease and remain every year for twelve days idle in the house of Agohya (an appellation of Aditya which means "one who cannot be concealed", therefore the Sun).
David Frawley states about that notion, that "Vedic gods, like the Adityas, Maruts, Vasus and Rhibhus, often appear as rays of the sun, as stars or constellations"[14] Bal Gangadhar Tilak, stating that the interpretation of Yaska and Sayana could not explain their number, interpreted them 1893 referring to "several European scholars" as representing the three seasons of the year of the early Vedic period.
[19] He describes them as the holiest days of the year of which the ancestors of today's Indians believed, that the devas then would leave heaven to visit the homes of the humans.
[21] Bal Gangadhar Tilak further interpreted the hound or dog, which according to RV 1.161.13 woke the Ribhus, as the "dogstar" Sirius, which appears at the vernal equinox "at the end of the Pitriyana".
[31] While he interpreted the beginning of the year at the vernal equinox, Arthur Anthony Macdonell 1917 stated that the twelve intercalary days "in all probability" were inserted at the winter solstice.
[37] But according to the translation of Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith RV 1.164.15 means the seven Rishis,[38] which according to David Frawley were actually eight seers, representing the Big Dipper.