Yamamiya Sengen Shrine

Yamamiya Sengen Shrine is said to be the moto-tsu-miya, the original shrine, of Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha. According to shrine tradition, in the reign of Emperor Keikō, Yamato Takeru was caught in a wildfire during his eastern campaign and was saved by the protection of the Fuji deity, and the deity’s spirit, until then worshipped at the foot of the mountain, was moved to this site. Until 806 (Daidō 1), when Sakanoue no Tamuramaro moved Sengen Taisha to its present site at Ōmiya, this was the centre of Fuji worship. Excavations have found pottery used in rituals in the second quarter of the twelfth century.

The shrine’s most distinctive feature is that it has no main hall. At the end of the Aosawa lava flow, on ground facing Mt. Fuji, there is only a worship area marked out by rows of stacked lava stones. Here the mountain itself is the object of worship, approached with no building in between, and this old form of faith survives at the site. Villagers say that however many times a building was put up, the wind would blow it down, and it is thought that a taboo against building a hall was kept for a long time.

The bond with Sengen Taisha is clearest in the Yamamiya Goshinkō, a rite in which the deity returned from Sengen Taisha to Yamamiya. Records show it was already performed in the Sengoku period. Every April and November a hoko (halberd) holding the deity’s spirit was carried to the altar at Yamamiya, where Mt. Fuji was worshipped directly. A ritual official carried the hoko on his left shoulder, and a welcoming fire was lit on the slope where the procession was met before it entered the ritual ground. The return to Ōmiya came at about two in the morning, and no lights at all were used on the way back. The rite continued until 1873 (Meiji 6) and, after a long break, has been revived in recent years. It rests on the idea that Yamamiya is the original shrine of the head shrine.

The worship area lies beyond the cedar-lined approach, and from it Mt. Fuji can be seen past the rows of lava stones. In 2013 the shrine was inscribed as a component of the World Heritage property Fujisan: Sacred Place and Source of Artistic Inspiration.