Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine

Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Shrine stands at the head of the Yoshida Trail on the northern side of Mt. Fuji. Tradition traces its origin to a small shrine raised by Yamato Takeru at the Ōtsuka mound, where he is said to have worshipped Fuji on his return from the eastern campaign; a sanctuary was reportedly erected on the present site in 788 (Enryaku 7). The earliest secure documentary reference is a record of the building of a torii gate in 1480 (Bunmei 12).

The ground on which the shrine stands was originally the “Forest of Suwa,” sacred to the local tutelary deity, and the Suwa shrine here is older than the Sengen shrine itself. The Yoshida Fire Festival, held each year on 26–27 August — formally the Chinka Taisai, or Great Fire-Quelling Festival — began as a rite of the Suwa deity and merged with the faith in pacifying Fuji’s eruptions; it is now counted among Japan’s three great unusual festivals.

With the flourishing of the Fuji-kō confraternities in the Edo period, the shrine prospered spectacularly as the base of pilgrimage from the Kantō region. The town before its gates was home to numerous oshi, hereditary priest-innkeepers who lodged the pilgrims, performed their prayers, and managed every detail of the ascent. The great torii of the precinct was understood as the first boundary dividing the profane world from the sacred domain of the mountain, and white-clad pilgrims passed beneath it to begin the long walk to the summit.

The cedar-lined approach, the ornate Momoyama-style sanctuary, and the Yoshida Trail setting out beside the main hall — the very composition of the precinct declares that Fuji begins here. In 2013 the shrine was inscribed as a component of the UNESCO World Heritage property Fujisan: Sacred Place and Source of Artistic Inspiration.