27/03/2026
Pench – Land of the Jungle Book and Mougli
Pench National Park is named after the Pench river in the Seoni district of Madhya pradesh.
It is the panoramic beauty of this region that has been described as early as the beginning of the 20th century by naturalists like Captain J. Forsyth in 'Highlands of Central India' and by Rudyard Kipling in the 'Jungle Book'.
The Pench Tiger Reserve and its neighborhood is the original setting of Rudyard Kipling's most famous work
Kipling borrowed heavily from Robert Armitage Strendale's books 'Seonee', 'Mammalia of India and Ceylon' and 'Denizens of the Jungle' for the topography, wildlife, and its ways. Mowgli was inspired by Sir William Henry Sleeman's pamphlet, 'An Account of Wolves Nurturing Children in Their Dens' which describes a wolf-boy captured in Seoni district near the village of Sant Baori in 1831. Many of The Jungle Book's locations are actual locations in Seoni District, like the Waingunga river with its gorge where Sherkhan was killed, Kanhiwara villlage and the 'Seeonee hills'.
The tiger, leopard and dhole (Indian Wild Dogs) are the predators who claim fiefdom in Pench. The sloth bear and the leopard cat coexist with the four-horned antelope and mouse deer. Spotted deer, sambar, barking deer, nilgai and wild pigs may also be encountered.
