Culture
Fuji has been sacred for at least 1,400 years. Long before climbing became a hobby, monks, poets and emperors built shrines, wrote myths and pinned the soul of Japan to its perfect cone.
In the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, Princess Kaguya returns to the moon and leaves the emperor an elixir of immortality. Heartbroken, he orders it burned on the highest peak in the land. The smoke is said to still rise from Fuji's summit, and the name Fuji is sometimes linked to 不死, meaning immortal.
The Shinto deity of Mount Fuji is Konohanasakuya-hime, the blossom-princess. She is worshipped at Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha in Fujinomiya and at every Sengen shrine on the mountain. She is the kami of volcanoes and of cherry blossoms.
An old legend says Fuji rose from the earth in a single night in 286 BC, the same night that Lake Biwa sank in. The story is geologically impossible but captures how sudden and dominant Fuji felt to early settlers.
Hokusai's 36 Views of Mount Fuji is the most famous artistic engagement with the mountain. The series, including The Great Wave off Kanagawa, helped fix Fuji's silhouette as a global symbol of Japan in the 19th century.
Fuji is the seat of Konohanasakuya-hime. Sengen shrines around the base have been the entry point for pilgrims since at least the 9th century.
Mountain ascetics treated Fuji as a path to enlightenment. The 1149 first recorded ascent was a Buddhist monk.
A folk faith that exploded in the Edo period. Pilgrim societies sent representatives up the mountain on behalf of their entire village.
