Mount Fuji

Overview

Mount Fuji is a 3,776-meter volcano on the Japanese island of Honshu, about 100 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, and the highest mountain in Japan. Shinto worshippers revere the mountain as the dwelling of a deity, and climbing it is a form of pilgrimage practiced for centuries. Shrines at its base and summit hold active worship. Mount Fuji is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Present

Mount Fuji spans Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures. The summit area of the mountain is the precinct of Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha, a Shinto shrine whose main sanctuary is located at the mountain's southwestern base. This shrine is the head of around 1,300 Sengen shrines across Japan dedicated to the deity of the mountain. A summit shrine, the Okumiya, is located near the crater rim, and Shinto priests conduct ceremonies there during the summer months. Worship also continues year-round at the shrines around the mountain's base. In 2013 UNESCO designated Mount Fuji a World Heritage Site as a cultural site, an inscription that covers the mountain together with 25 component locations, including shrines, lakes, and pilgrimage routes.

Religious Significance

Shinto (from antiquity)

In Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, Mount Fuji is venerated as the dwelling of a kami, a spirit or deity. Worship of the volcano began as an effort to appease its eruptions, and shrines were built around its base for this purpose. The deity enshrined at the Sengen shrines is Konohanasakuya-hime, a goddess associated with blossoms, whom the shrines identify with the spirit of the mountain. Climbing Mount Fuji is itself an act of worship. Pilgrims traditionally purify themselves at a shrine at the base, ascend in white clothing, and walk the circuit of the summit crater. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, lay associations known as Fuji-kō organized these pilgrimages; members who could not make the climb built miniature replicas of the mountain in their home neighborhoods and climbed those instead.

Buddhism (from around the 12th century CE)

Practitioners of Shugendō, a Japanese tradition of mountain asceticism that combines Buddhist and Shinto elements, established routes of ascent on Mount Fuji and regarded the climb as a discipline of purification. Buddhist practice on the mountain merged with Shinto worship over the following centuries, and Buddhist imagery is part of the mountain's ritual history.

History & Structure

Mount Fuji is a stratovolcano formed by successive eruptions, with a symmetrical cone that rises in isolation from the surrounding plains. Its last eruption took place in 1707. The summit crater is ringed by eight peaks, of which the highest, Kengamine, reaches 3,776 meters. Fujisan Hongū Sengen Taisha was established at the base of the mountain in 806 CE. Its current main buildings date to 1604, and in 1606 the ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu granted the shrine the upper slopes and summit of the mountain, which it holds to this day. The Okumiya summit shrine is located near the crater rim. Further shrines, lava caves, springs, and the Fuji Five Lakes surround the mountain's base. In 2013 UNESCO designated Mount Fuji a World Heritage Site.

Additional Resources

• UNESCO: Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration
• Book: Mount Fuji: Icon of Japan by H. Byron Earhart (2011)