Bagheera Bagheera Bagheera (; "Baghīrā"/"Bagīdah") is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in the "Jungle Book" (coll. 1894) and the "Second Jungle Book" (coll. 1895). He is a black panther (melanistic Indian leopard) who serves as friend, protector and mentor to the "man-cub" Mowgli. The word "bagheera" is Hindi/Urdu for black panther-- although the root word bagh means tiger. Born in captivity in the menagerie of the Raja of Udaipur, Rajasthan, 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
Bagheera Kingsley brings the appropriate level of gravitas to the strait-laced Bagheera". Todd VanDerWerff from Vox gave Bagheera the top spot on a ranking of all the talking animals from the film from best to worst stating: "By the very nature of the story, Bagheera has to be sidelined for a time — so that Mowgli is forced to confront the dangers of the jungle alone — but this version of the tale really made me feel the cat's absence. That's a good sign" "-any iteration of The Jungle Book is only as good as its Bagheera. He's the concerned parent,