[Mt.Fuji] The Mountain of Yearning

Mt.Fuji■The Mountain of Yearning

Since ancient times, Fuji has been a holy mountain. Believers face it to pray, and others climb it to pray at the top.

Mt. Fuji and its Believers
In the days when it was emitting smoke and flame, Mt. Fuji posed a threat to those who lived around it. Prayers for it to subside evolved gradually into religious belief. The Emperor Suinin enshrined Asama-no-Okami at its foot, according to legend in 27 BCE, to appease the spirits of the mountain, and this is the origin of the present Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha shrine, head of the Asama shrines found all over Japan. The first warrior to bear the title ‘Shogun’, Sakanoue no Tamuramaro, moved the shrine to its present site at the order of Emperor Heizei in 806. After the mountain subsided, the founder of ‘Mountain Buddhism’, the monk Matsudai Shonin, ascended Mt. Fuji in the 12th century chanting the ‘Six Roots of Perception’ mantra, and set out the basic route of pilgrimage to the summit. By about the 15th century it had become common for ascetics and even ordinary folk to go to the top of Mt. Fuji, and it had become a place one climbed, rather than simply faced, in order to worship. The Edo period, from the 17th to the 19th centuries, saw the formation of ‘Fuji congregations’ who would climb in groups that eventually grew into huge ‘808 Congregations’ ascending in search of the ‘Pure Land’ state of mind awaiting at the peak