The story of Dina Sanichar represents one of the most extraordinary cases of contact between a child and the animal world in nineteenth-century India. The boy discovered in a cave among wolves never managed to fully adapt to human society, despite years of effort by his caregivers. His fate became the inspiration for the literary character of Mowgli.
Discovery in the Bulandshahr Cave
Hunters made a remarkable discovery during an expedition near Bulandshahr in February 1867. In one of the caves, they found a boy approximately six years old who had been living among a wolf pack.
The child moved exclusively on all fours and showed no reaction to human speech. After capturing the boy, he was first handed over to the local court, from where he was sent to an orphanage in Sikandra near Agra.
The institution specialized in caring for children requiring special attention and re-education. The staff began a long process of attempting to restore human behaviors to the boy. The first weeks revealed the enormous scale of the challenge – the child communicated through wolf-like howling and growling.
Name Assignment and Orphanage Habits
The staff at the Sikandra facility gave the boy the name Dina Sanichar, which means Saturday in Hindi. The choice stemmed from the fact that the child was admitted to the center on that day of the week. Among the staff and other wards, the boy earned the nickname Wolf Boy.
His eating habits completely departed from human standards – he would only accept raw meat. Before consuming each portion, he would carefully smell the food and reject anything that didn’t match his animal instincts. Attempts to teach him basic skills like walking on two legs or wearing clothes produced minimal results.
Throughout all his years at the facility, Sanichar never mastered human speech. He remained in a state of profound developmental disability until the end of his days.
Life Among His Kind
The Sikandra orphanage also admitted other children with similar experiences of living in the wild. Superintendent Erhardt Lewis documented how this unusual group formed their own community based on mutual understanding. The bonds between the boys proved to be the only way through which Sanichar could establish any contact with the world.
Interactions with peers who had similar backgrounds allowed him to function at a level that was impossible when in contact with normal children. Within the walls of the facility, Sanichar adopted one typically human behavior – he learned to smoke cigarettes and developed this addiction.
Final Years and Death in 1895
Tuberculosis ended Dina Sanichar’s life after twenty-eight years spent at the orphanage. His death occurred in 1895, when he was approximately thirty-four years old. Documentation maintained by caregivers and facility administrators confirmed that he never achieved the ability to communicate normally with his surroundings.
His case remained in the annals as one of the most well-documented examples of a child raised by animals. Historical sources from that period describe in detail the process of attempted resocialization and its failure.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- https://www.historyextra.com/period/general-history/history-feral-children-mowgli-wild-raised-wolves/
- https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dina-sanichar-real-life-mowgli/
- https://medium.com/flamma-saga/human-or-beast-the-mysterious-case-of-dina-sanichar-indias-wolf-child-a980bc1fc83f
- https://allthatsinteresting.com/dina-sanichar
- https://worldofextraordinary.com.au/2025/04/24/wild-child-the-real-life-mowgli-of-india/
Rory Thornfield
Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.
His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.
Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.
Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.