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Fuji-Hakone-Izu NP, Yamanashi
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At the Yoshida Fire Festival, the “O-yama-san” mikoshi represents erupting Fuji. Bearers deliberately drop the 1-ton portable shrine; the shrine says the dramatic act stirs the deity’s power and helps calm the mountain.
More than 18 m tall, the shrine’s wooden great torii is described as Japan’s largest. Its plaque reads “Sangoku Daiichizan”—Fuji, the greatest mountain among Japan, China and India, the three lands of the old Japanese world.
Three successive main halls now stand together: the 1561 hall became the East Sanctuary, the 1594 hall the West, and the 1615 hall the current honden. Earlier halls were moved aside rather than cleared away; all 3 are Important Cultural Properties.
The Yoshida Fire Festival is said to have begun as a festival for Suwa Shrine, which preceded the Fuji Sengen shrine in this grove. One local legend says villagers’ torches fooled pursuers of Suwa’s fleeing god; today, about 80 towering torches light the town.
Shrine tradition traces worship to nearby Otsuka Hill, where the legendary Yamato Takeru is said to have revered Fuji in 110. After an eruption in 781, the Asama deity was moved to today’s shrine site in 788, while Takeru remained on the hill.
Three of the 4 traditional sacred trees still stand, each said by the Yamanashi shrine association to be over 1,000 years old. Their arrangement around the worship space is interpreted as a clue that early worshippers bowed to Fuji from below.
Behind the main shrine is a small alcove for Ebisu and Daikokuten, gods of prosperity. To pray there, visitors turn their backs to Fuji—an unusual arrangement at a Sengen shrine; one guide suggests the gods may have been positioned to face the mountain.
A 1480 record mentions a Fuji torii at this site, before surviving records name either Sengen or Suwa shrine here. It marks an early sacred gateway to the mountain—not the construction date of today’s towering torii.
The shrine writes Fuji as 冨士, using a flat-roofed 冨 instead of 富. One later interpretation says the missing dot means no one stands atop sacred Fuji; the shrine notes that such explanations likely arose in the Edo–Meiji period.
The shrine’s FAQ explains that it sits northeast of Fuji, not directly north. “Kitaguchi” refers to its role at the beginning of the northern Yoshida route, rather than a strict compass position.
The shrine’s Daidai Kagura has 12 dance sections. Fuji pilgrimage guides once passed it down; since the Meiji era, a local kagura group has continued the tradition. Yamanashi Prefecture recognizes it as an intangible folk cultural property.
A stone on the shrine approach, Tachigyō-ishi, is linked to Fuji-kō founder Hasegawa Kakugyō. Local tradition says he stood naked on tiptoe in the bitter cold there for 30 days of austerities.
Farther along the Yoshida Trail that begins here, a memorial records Fuji-kō devotees who left Fujiyoshida in January 1918 and spent about a month on a snow-climbing ascetic pilgrimage—a chapter of the route’s history beyond its familiar summer climbs.
