Bagheera is a black panther who is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories
in The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book. The word Bagh means tiger in Hindi.
Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody dared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as
Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant. But he
had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down.
Character history Born in captivity in the menagerie of the
Rajah of Oodeypore, India, Bagheera begins to plan for his freedom after his mother dies.
Once he is mature and strong enough, he breaks the lock on his cage and escapes into the
jungle, where his ferocity and cunning win him the respect of all its other inhabitants,
except Shere Khan the tiger. Bagheera reveals all this to Mowgli later. None but Mowgli
ever learn that Bagheera once wore a collar and chain, explaining the cat's special insight
concerning Men. When Father Wolf and Mother Wolf of the Seeonee
wolf pack adopt the human "cub" Mowgli and the pack demands that the new cub should be
spoken for, Bagheera buys Mowgli's life with a freshly killed bull and helps to raise him
as one of the pack. Because his life has been bought by a bull, Mowgli is forbidden to eat
cattle. Bagheera shares in many of Mowgli's adventures
as he grows, but eventually the time comes when the man-cub becomes a man and has to
return to human society. Bagheera frees Mowgli of his debt to the wolf pack by killing another
bull, and Mowgli returns to his adopted human mother Messua.
Bagheera is one of Mowgli's mentors and best friends. He, Baloo and Kaa sing for Mowgli
"The Outsong" of the jungle. Media portrayals
In film In the animated Soviet version, Adventures
of Mowgli, Bagheera is portrayed as female. This may be related to the fact that the Russian
word for "panther" is a feminine noun, and a name ending with 'a' is considered to be
a female name in the Russian language. An episode shows she has three cubs, one black
and two yellow with rosette patterns. Bagheera is portrayed as friendly, loyal, trustworthy,
protective and cunning, yet somewhat tricky. In Disney's adaptation, Bagheera the panther
is, as in the book, male, and voiced by Sebastian Cabot in English. The panther is portrayed
as a clever, serious and responsible character, quite similar to the Bagheera in the novel,
except that in the novel, Bagheera spoiled Mowgli more. In the film, it is Bagheera and
not the wolves who first finds Mowgli, a young village child, and he is the one who takes
him back to the village. During the movie, Bagheera often argues with Baloo, for he knows
that as long as Shere Khan is in the jungle, the jungle is not safe for Mowgli despite
all of Baloo's attempts to protect him. Bagheera is also the narrator of the movie's story.
Bagheera is also one of the major characters left out of the TaleSpin series which used
several Jungle Book characters. However, many of Shere Khan's employees and military personnel
are black panthers very similar in appearance to Bagheera.
In the prequel cartoon series, he is often made fun of by his friends, especially the
bully Shere Khan. He is also called "Baggy". Like Shere Khan, he too has a British accent
in the 1967 film, but has an American accent in this series.
In the second film, he reappears as the serious Bagheera. He, with the help of Colonel Hathi's
troops tries to prevent Baloo from reaching the man village. When the villagers try to
find Mowgli, he suspects that Baloo has brought him back. Baloo hides Mowgli from Shere Khan,
making Bagheera believe that he is not with him. After Khan is trapped, Mowgli meets him
again and Mowgli introduces Bagheera to Shanti the girl who's Mowgli's best friend at the
village. Near the end of the film, Mowgli's younger adoptive brother Ranjan is shown playing
with Bagheera's tail. At first Bagheera is scared, but later enjoys playing with him,
while Mowgli Shanti and Baloo sing the reprise of The Bare Necessities.
In some Disney comics drawn in Italy, Bagheera is depicted as a female non-anthropomorphic
animal movie star, loosely based on her animated movie appearance. Originally all black, she
has white body parts. She enjoys signing autographs for her fans and eating pistachio-flavored
pet food, being vegetarian. In the song "Bagheera" by Blues Traveler,
he is depicted with blood-stained fur drinking at the bar, counseling a young man-cub about
his choice to live as man or as a free creature. He remembers when he was in the midst of his
decision to live with the world of Man or to return to the jungle and be free. The line
says "some say if you could have seen him then, you would have noticed a tear fall from
his majestic eye." In the comic book series Fables, Bagheera
appears as one of the characters living in exile on the Farm in upstate New York. He
participates in the farm uprising and, along with the other "Kipling" fables, he assists
Goldilocks in tracking down Reynard the Fox. Bagheera actually succeeds in tracking down
Reynard, though the Fox manages to escape from him. It is implied that Bagheera's primary
motivation for capturing the Fox is to show up Shere Khan after Khan arrogantly rejects
Bagheera's offer of help. After the uprising is defeated, a remorseful Bagheera agrees
to imprisonment rather than forced labor. However, as he reveals to Mowgli, he has the
memory of urinating on the deceased Shere Khan's grave to amuse himself.
In the 1998 film The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story, Bagheera is portrayed as a female,
voiced by Eartha Kitt. A Swedish play version of The Jungle Book
spoofed the confusion of Bagheera's sex in the media by portraying him as a transvestite.
Ben Kingsley will be voicing the character in the 2015 film while Christian Bale was
cast to voice the character in Warner Bros.' The Jungle Book: Origins.
Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book In the 1994 live-action movie, Bagheera serves
a jungle animal friend to Mowgli and his pet wolf, Grey Brother. After Mowgli and Grey
Brother are separated from civilization, Bagheera finds them the next day. Hearing Shere Khan's
roar from a distance, Bagheera signals with his tail to Mowgli to grab on to it so as
to lead him out of harm's way. It takes a while until Bagheera finally brings Mowgli
and Grey Brother to a pack of Grey Indian wolves. Seeing as the child is young, friendly,
helpless, harmless, and kind to a cub of their species, the wolves accept them as members
of the pack, much to Bagheera's delight. Years later, Bagheera is seen most of the
time spending time on a tree not doing much and sometimes running with a fully-grown Mowgli,
Grey Brother, a new friend named Baloo the brown bear, who is saved as a cub by Mowgli
on the day Mowgli is accepted into the pack, and the wolf pack.
A few days later, after Mowgli has learned the ways of men and re-entered civilization
thanks to Katherine "Kitty" Brydon and Dr. Julius Plumford, Bagheera is seen being caressed
and introduced to Kitty by Mowgli along with all the rest of Mowgli's jungle animal friends.
Bagheera and the other animals watch as Kitty teaches Mowgli some dancing lessons, much
to their amusement. In a later tussle against soldiers working
for Captain Boone, Baloo is shot and left for dead. Bagheera is then seen running with
Mowgli and the wolf pack to locate Dr. Julius Plumford to save Baloo's life, only to find
that the doctor has already left with Kitty and her father, Colonel Geoffrey Brydon, to
bring Katherine to the ship to England. Mowgli goes out and follows them with the wolves
and Bagheera behind. After saving Dr. Plumford from death, Bagheera is seen charging along
with the wolf pack against Indian bandits. Dr. Plumford is then taken by Mowgli to save
Baloo's life. After Mowgli is captured by evil British soldiers—Boone,
Lt. Wilkins, and Sergeant Harley—and the remaining Indian bandits—Buldeo and Tabaqui—Bagheera
is seen with the wolves keeping an eye on Mowgli, his friends, and enemies while staring
at Boone and Wilkins mostly. When Wilkins asks himself why Bagheera is staring at them,
Mowgli replies, "Because to him, you are food." A reply is hinted afterwards when Bagheera
sticks out his tongue to show his hunger for them. The next morning, Bagheera is seen biting
through the ropes tying Mowgli to a tree, thus allowing him to escape, and then later
on, to rescue the left-out injured Colonel Brydon from death.
In the final scene, after Boone's defeat, Bagheera is seen crossing a bridge with Kitty
and a triumphant Mowgli while reuniting with the British Army sent out by Colonel Brydon,
who is successfully cured from his injuries by Dr. Plumford, to find them.
Voices of Bagheera Sebastian Cabot
Dana Delany Arthur Grosser
Kenneth Mars Bob Joles
Jim Cummings Elizabeth Daily and Dee Bradley Baker
Eartha Kitt Ben Kingsley
Christian Bale See also
Bagheera kiplingi USS Bagheera (SP-963)
References ^ "Ben Kingsley to Voice Bagheera in Disney's
The Jungle Book". Deadline. June 25, 2014. Retrieved June 25, 2014.
External links Media related to Bagheera at Wikimedia Commons