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.

Gandhari

Gandhari is a character from Mahabharatha. She is the wife of King Dritharashtra and mother of 100 kauravas including Duryodhana, Dushasana.

She was daughter of Gandhara king Suvala and sister of Sakuni.  When Bheeshma came to ask the had of Gandhari for his grand son Dhritharashtra, Suvala hesitated because the groom was blind. Then he accepted the offer looking at the riches and lineage of Kuru kings.
When Gandhari came to know that she will marry blind Dhritharastra, she blind folded her eyes. Some say it is out of respect for Dhritharashtra and some say as a protest.

When she was pregnant, she heard the news that Kunti, the wife of Pandu has given birth to son. She was so jealous that Kunti's son will inherit the kingdoom and  she squeezed her stomach and her fetus broke into hundred and one pieces and fell on ground.  Vyasa who heard the news, came and  told her to keep these pieces in pots filled with ghee. These eventually developed into hundred sons and a daughter Dushyala.
As the sons - kauravas grew up, she realized that her sons were not on the righteous path. She tried to stop them but in vain.
And during Mahabharatha war, she called her son Duryodhana and told him to appear in front of her unclothed and she will open her blindfold and look at his body and her look will make his body as strong as steel. But out of modesty he wears a loin cloth and appears in front of her.  Her look made his body steel like except where he was clothed.
Krishna knew this secret and during the final battle between Bheema and Duryodhana, he told Bhima to attack the Duryodhana on his thighs and Duryodhana was killed.
Gandhari last all her hundred sons in the Mahabharatha war. Enraged she cursed Krishna that even his clan will be destroyed completely and they will die fighting among themselves (yadavi kalaha)

Bhageeratha

Bhageeratha
He was a Kosala king. He brought river Ganga flowing in Heaven (Swarga) to earth. He prayed for thousands of years and faced many hurdles, but still did not give up. So anyone who tries to do a work  in spite of of the hurdles is said to be doing Bhageeratha prayatna
Since Ganga was brought to earth by Bhageeratha, the river is also called Bhageerathi


Background
King Sagara of Kosala was performing Ashwamedha yajna. The ceremonial horse went to Kapila's hermitage. Sixty thousand sons of Sagara who were following the the horse, angered the sage. He cursed them and all of them turned to ashes, a huge mountain of ashes.
Sagara's grandson Anshuman  was told by Kapila that if Ganga flows over the ashes, they will get mukti. But to bring Ganga to earth required many years of Tapasya. When Bhageeratha became king, he did tapas for Brahma for thousand years and when Brahma appeared before him, he asked for bringing Ganga to earth. Brahma agreed. And Ganga started flowing on earth.
But entire towns and villages and forests were flooded by Ganga. Then Bhageeratha prayed to Shiva for help. Shiva caught Ganga in his Locks. Then he let her flow in smaller stream.
Bhageeratha led Ganga. Now the river flooded rishi Jahnu's house and fields and washed them away. Angry Jahnu, swallowed the entire river. But the gods prayed to Jahnu to release Ganga. He yielded and released her from his ear. Hence the name Jahnavi to the river