"[2] Part of Kipling's inspiration for the story of Mowgli is believed to have been William Henry Sleeman's account of six cases in India in which wild children had been raised by wolves.

[5] One most notable feral child was found in the wolf's den at the Bulandshahr district in 1867 and subsequently brought to the Sikandra orphanage at Agra, where he was given the name Dina Sanichar.

"In the Rukh" describes how Gisborne, an English forest ranger in the Pench area in Seoni at the time of the British Raj, discovers a young man named Mowgli, who has extraordinary skills in hunting, tracking, and driving wild animals (with the help of his wolf brothers).

Later, Gisborne learns the reason for Mowgli's almost superhuman talents; he was raised by a pack of wolves in the jungle (explaining the scars on his elbows and knees from going on all fours).

Kipling then proceeded to write the stories of Mowgli's childhood in detail in The Jungle Book, which serves as a prequel to In the Rukh.

In the pack, Mowgli learns he is able to stare down any wolf, and his unique ability to remove the painful thorns from the paws of his brothers is deeply appreciated as well.

After driving off Shere Khan, Mowgli goes to a human village where he is adopted by Messua and her husband, whose own son Nathoo was also taken by a tiger.

This is one of a series featuring a teddy bear-like race called Hokas who enjoy human literature but cannot quite grasp the distinction between fact and fiction.

In this story, a group of Hokas get hold of a copy of The Jungle Book and begin to act it out, enlisting the help of a human boy to play Mowgli.

The Third Jungle Book (1992) by Pamela Jekel is a collection of new Mowgli stories in a fairly accurate pastiche of Kipling's style.

It also includes an exclusive interview with Diana Santos[10] who voiced the character in the Latin American Spanish dub of the 1967 film.

In The Jungle Book: Mowgli's Story, he was played by Brandon Baker, Ryan Taylor and off-screen by Fred Savage.

Mowgli was played by Neel Sethi and by Kendrick Reyes as a toddler in the Disney live-action reimagination, which was released in 3D in April 2016.