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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Shizuoka
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The shrine owns the land from Mount Fuji’s 8th station to the summit. After the Meiji government made it state land, a 1974 Supreme Court ruling led to its return to the shrine in 2004.
Completed in 1606 under Tokugawa Ieyasu, the 13.6-m main hall is the sole surviving example of “Sengen-zukuri”: a shrine-style upper storey perched atop a broad, two-level base.
Local tradition traces the shrine’s yabusame to 1193, when Minamoto no Yoritomo is said to have offered mounted archery after a hunt at Fuji. Today, archers gallop a 150-m cherry-lined course and shoot 2 targets.
Before climbing Fuji, pilgrims purified themselves in Wakutama Pond. A late-medieval silk Fuji Mandala held by the shrine depicts the rite, which continued here into the 1920s–30s.
Wakutama’s water leaves the shrine as the Kanda River, where rainbow trout are released and a March fishing event is held. Fuji’s spring-fed trout farming also makes the fish a local food specialty.
Built to calm Fuji’s eruptions, the shrine stands where lava ends and spring water surfaces. Shrine tradition dates its move here from Yamamiya to 806—an origin story where fire and water meet.
A natural stone on the main-gate steps once held a sacred halberd while priests rested on the spring and autumn procession between this shrine and Yamamiya, 5.45 km away. The rite ended in 1874.
A map of the precinct as it stood around 1670 labels a shrine dedicated to water beside the pond. Each July, the Otaue rice-planting festival still gives thanks for Fuji’s spring water and prays for a good harvest.
