Diti and Aditi

Diti and Aditi are both daughters of Prajapati Daksha. They are both married to sage Kashyapa.

Indra and 12 aadityas are sons of Aditi. 

And Diti's sons are demons, Hiranyaksha, Hiranyakashipu, Jaya, Vijaya etc. Daitya (demon in sanskrit) is derived from Diti.

One story says that - After Indra is born, Diti requests Kashyapa to give her also a handsome, strong and intelligent son. And after she becomes pregnant with the child, Aditi becomes jealous and asks her son Indra to kill the child in the womb. Indra goes to his step mother, bows to her and requests her to let him wash her feet. When he is washing and cleaning her feet, Diti falls asleep. Indra enters her womb with his powers and cuts the fetus into 49 pieces. When she realizes what he has done, Diti curses Indra and Aditi. She curses that Aditi will be born as a human and suffers a lot. And because of that curse, Aditi will be born as Devaki, mother of Krishna.

Brahaspati

Brahaspati is the guru - teacher of Gods. (deva guru)

Shukracharya is the teacher of Demons.

Brahaspati is son of Sage Angirasa and Surupa. He has three wives , Shubha, Tara and Mamata. and Kacha is one of his sons.

In astrology, Planet Jupiter  is  called Brahaspati. Hence thursday, day of Jupiter is also called brahaspati vaara in India.


In colloquial usage, a person is said to be thinking of himself as brahaspati in derisive manner - as  he thinks himself to be too smart

Bheeshma

King Shantanu of Hastinapur married Ganga - the river who stays in heaven. But she had set a condition. King should not ask her any questions no matter what she does. Blinded by love and passion, king agrees and marries Ganga.

Ganga gives birth to a beautiful son. But as soon as the baby is born, Ganga takes the new born to the river and puts the baby in the river and returns empty handed. King is aghast after hearing the news. He comes to confront her. But remembering her condition, he keeps quiet.

But Ganga throws her sons into the river again and again. Seven sons of King Shantanu are thrown into river. But when eighth son is born, king can no longer hide his anger and sadness and stops her. King asks Ganga, why is she throwing their children to river. Ganga returns back to heaven as King is broken his promise.

Eighth son of King Shantanu remains alive and is called Devavrata who later becomes Bheeshma.

Devavrata grows to become handsome and strong young man. When he is 16, he notices that his father has become very moody and is showing interest in nothing. When he probes around, he comes to know that his father has fallen for a daughter of a fisherman called Matsyagandhi. But the fisherman is not letting him marry his daughter because, Shantanu already has a son who will be heir to the throne.

Devavrata walks to the hut of Matsyagandhi and promises her father that he will never become king, so he need not worry. Then fisherman raises the doubt that, his children may covet the throne and hence snatch it from fisherman's grandsons. At this the prince makes a bheeshma pratijne - severe oath - that he will never marry so that his children or grand children will never compete for the throne. With this oath, he comes to be called as Bheeshma. He also promises that he will always protect the throne of Hastinapur.

Shantanu marries Matsyagandhi and later gives birth to two sons Chitraveerya and Vichitraveerya.

Bheeshma brings them up like his own children. Educates them. But Chitraveerya dies an untimely death.

Bheeshma goes to a swayamvara to bring brides for Vichitraveerya. King of kashi had 3 daughters Amba, Ambika, Ambalika and had arranged a swayamvara for their marriage.  Bheeshma abducts these three princesses and brings them to Hastinapur.

But Amba tells him that she loves King Salva and would marry only him. Bheeshma is kind and tells her to go to Salva and marry him. But Salva rejects her because she was abducted by Bheeshma.

Amba returns to Hastinapur and asks Bheeshma to marry her. He tells her about his oath and declines to marry her. She does severe tapas asks a boon to kill him.  and is born as King Drupad's daughter Shikhandi.

In the Mahabharatha war, Shikhandi comes opposite to Bheeshma. Bheeshma says he can not fight with women and leaves the battle ground. He asks his great grand son Arjun  to prepare a bed made of arrows for him and lies on it waiting for Uttarayana to come. Waiting for his death.