Last update: January 2026
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha (often called simply ‘Sengen Taisha’) is a Japanese Shinto shrine in Fujinomiya City, Shizuoka Prefecture (in the Chubu Region). It is located at the southwestern foot of Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain. Since long ago, people have revered the shrine as ichinomiya (一之宮), which roughly means “the first shrine people should visit,” or “the most influential shrine in the district.” This shrine is a beautiful place with a lot of sakura trees (Japanese cherry trees), and is also popular as one of the best Mount Fuji viewing spots in Fujinomiya City. If you are thinking about exploring the southern side of Mount Fuji, I hope you will include this spot in your Japan tour itinerary.
Many famous generals and feudal lords throughout history prayed at this shrine and offered gifts. And in 1896, the Meiji government at that time gave the shrine the rank of kanpei taisha (官幣大社), a government supported shrine of the first rank. Also, Sengen Taisha in Fujinomiya City is the head shrine of 1,300 sengen shrines throughout Japan. Generally speaking, ‘sengen shrines’ are the ones where Mount Fuji is the main object of worship (although there are a few exceptions). The kanji characters for sengen (浅間) can also be read as asama, which is the name of the ancient kami (Shinto deity) of volcanoes. And in the Middle Ages, Mt. Fuji was the most violent and feared volcano in the nation. That is why the people built sengen shrines all around Japan and tried to appease the raging deity of Mount Fuji by worshipping the mountain.
In this way, Sengen Taisha has been closely connected with Mount Fuji since long ago. The shrine used to be called the ‘gateway to Mount Fuji’ because it was the place where people prayed and performed ablutions before ascending the mountain. In the old days, climbing Mt. Fuji was a kind of a religious act, rather than one of leisure. These activities of the medieval climbers are well documented in a religious painting from the early 16th century called Fujisan Mandara. This painting is the nation’s Important Cultural Asset, and it is kept at this very shrine.
Sengen Taisha also has a branch shrine, Sengen Taisha Okumiya Shrine, at the summit of Mount Fuji. And surprisingly enough, the area above the eighth station (approximately the 3000-meter point) of the mountain is actually the part of Sengen Taisha’s precinct. Since olden times, people have considered the summit crater to be the place where kami actually reside. Now you can see that the connection between Mt. Fuji and Sengen Taisha has been very strong. So, when Mount Fuji became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in June 2013, Sengen Taisha was also registered as one of the ‘component parts’ of the sacred mountain.
The principal deity of Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha is a goddess Konohana-no-sakuya-hime-no-mikoto. Her name can roughly mean ‘cherry blossom princess’. And that is why the cherry has been a holy tree of the shrine. Now there are as many as 500 cherry trees in the precinct. In former days, people considered Mount Fuji itself to be a temporary manifestation of the goddess Konohana. It was because the mountain had such an elegant figure, with long symmetrical sides. And Asama, the aforementioned kami, was regarded as identical to Konohana. So, it is thought that in a spiritual sense, Asama, Konohana, and Mount Fuji are basically the same thing.
But the goddess also had her fierce side. The ancient Japanese mythology has a following story. When Ninigi-no-mikoto, who was her husband, learned about Konohana’s pregnancy, he doubted her faithfulness. So, she locked herself in a doorless hut and set fire to it, saying that the child would be born safely even in the fire if it was truly her husband’s (if it was really divine). And eventually, she delivered triplets.
People thought Konohana had powers to control not only fire but also water. And it was these magical powers of her that were considered to keep Mount Fuji from erupting. Today, when we worship at Sengen Taisha, the benefits which are believed to be bestowed upon us include: fire prevention, safety of ocean voyage, family harmony, and easy childbirth, among others. Obviously these benefits come from her special powers in the mythical story.
Walking down the 150 meter approach toward the Romon Gate (the Main Gate), you will come to the small but charming pond called Kagami-ike (Mirror Pond). People sometimes call it Spectacles Pond due to its shape. This pond, like a mirror, reflects everything that surrounds it. On the surface of this pond, you can see the beautiful reflections of the tree branches, the stone lantern, the Main Gate, and even the summit of Mt. Fuji if you are lucky. The arched bridge across the pond was rebuilt with stone in 1915, commemorating the enthronement of Emperor Taisho.
Beside the Mirror Pond, there is a bronze statue of an archer on horseback. This is based on a story about Minamoto-no-Yoritomo, the Shogun who established Japan’s first samurai government in Kamakura in the late 12th century. When he held a large-scale hunting session at the foot of Mt. Fuji in 1193, he dedicated Yabusame to Sengen Taisha.
Yabusame is a type of traditional Japanese archery. An archer on horseback shoots three arrows successively at the targets. It was one of the military practices to promote the shooting skills of samurai warriors. But it was also a ritual to honor the shrine. And in commemoration of Yoritomo’s act, the shrine holds a Yabusame Festival in the early May every year. It is when the Sakura-no-baba, a large horse-riding ground in front of the Main Gate, is crowded with spectators.
If you walk under the Romon Gate and enter into the graveled sanctuary area of the shrine, you will notice that the main buildings are all painted vermillion, and have thatched roofs of hinoki bark (hinoki is a Japanese white cedar). Since ancient times, people believed the vermillion color had the power to drive away evil spirits. And hinoki-bark roofs are one of the most ancient forms of Japanese roof construction. In medieval Japan, they had a higher value than tiled roofs.
You may find several different symbols painted or carved on those buildings: the symbol of a chrysanthemum flower, which is the family crest of the Japanese imperial family; the symbol of the three leaves of hollyhock, which is Tokugawa’s; and the symbol of the shuro tree (a kind of palm tree) painted on the offertory box, which comes from the Fuji clan whose members had served as the high priests of Sengen Taisha for over a thousand years.
The shrine tradition tells about the origin of Sengen Taisha. The 11th Emperor, Suinin, built a shrine at the slopes of Mt. Fuji in the year of 27 B.C. And he enshrined Asama-no-ohkami there in order to quell the raging spirit of the mountain. Then, in the year of 806, people moved the shrine to its current location from a place called Yamamiya, which was (and is) about 6.2 km (3 mi.) to the north. Yamamiya still has a shrine called Yamamiya Sengen Shrine, which was the precursor to the current Sengen Taisha. Today, Sengen Taisha still holds a festival every April, commemorating the spiritual relations with its counterpart in Yamamiya.
In former days, the big festivals were held twice a year and they included a ritual called Yamamiya-goshinkou (山宮御神幸). In this ritual, a sacred hoko was carried back and forth between the two shrines on the left shoulder of a Shinto priest. (It had to be held always on the left shoulder.) Hoko (鉾) is an ancient weapon with a blade on the top, but in this case, it is a ceremonial hoko with a long wooden handle. A rock that was used as a hoko stand for the ritual is now displayed in front of the Main Gate of Sengen Taisha.
The shrine’s main structures we see today were built in 1604 by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the ruler of Japan at that time. Ieyasu sponsored the building of twenty-three structures at Sengen Taisha to express his gratitude for winning a decisive battle at Sekigahara in 1600. But unfortunately, the great earthquakes in the 17th and 18th centuries destroyed many of those buildings. Today, only three of them still remainーthe Inner Shrine (Main Hall or Honden), the Front Shrine (Haiden), and the Main Gate (Romon). They are all listed as important cultural assets of the nation.
The Main Gate structure is about 12 meter high, and contains the carved statues of zuishin (guardians) on its right and left sides. They are protecting the shrine. On their backs there are inscriptions saying that they were carved in the 19th year of Keicho, which is 1614 A.D.
With a height of about 13.6 meter, the Inner Shrine has an unusual shape. It is a two-storied building, each with its own roof. The first story has a roof which gently slopes downwards on four sides. It’s said that the roof was designed to resemble the shape of Mount Fuji. And the top story, with its asymmetrical gabled roof, might represent the celestial world where kami reside. They say that this type of two-storied shrine structure is very rare throughout Japan. And it is called the sengen-zukuri architectural style, which was named after this very shrine.
Wakutama Pond
Wakutama Pond (or Wakutama-ike) is located in the precinct of Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha. When you finish worshipping at the main building of the shrine and exit the graveled main sanctuary area through the small east gate, you will come to this beautiful pond.
This spot is one of the hidden gems in Japan. It was designated as a “Special Natural Monument” of the nation in 1952, and its water was selected as one of the “100 Excellent and Well-Conserved Waters in the Heisei Period” by the Ministry of the Environment in June 5, 2008.
Wakutama (湧玉) could mean ‘rising bubbles’ or ‘gushing jewels’ in Japanese, and as its name suggests, this is not an ordinary pond. The water of the pond is actually spring water from Mount Fuji, which is constantly gushing out from among the rocks at the bottom of the pond. The quantity of the spring water is said to be 200,000 tons per day (3.6 kilo liters per second). A stream from the pond traverses Fujinomiya City, before it joins the Uruoi River and finally flows into Suruga Bay, which is open to the Pacific Ocean.
Much of the ground around Mount Fuji consists of basalt rocks, which were formed from cooled lava. According to recent studies, the rain or snow that falls on the upper and middle parts of Mt. Fuji seeps into the ground, and the rainwater or melted snow moves very slowly, as ‘pressurized ground water,’ through the layers of volcanic rocks, and it eventually comes out onto the ground at the very point where the ancient lava flows stopped.
Wakutama Pond happens to be located at one of those ‘terminal points’ of lava flow, and that is why there is a large amount of spring water bubbling up consistently there. And the water temperature of the pond remains steady all year round at about 13 degrees Celsius (55 degrees Fahrenheit).
The theories vary among experts on how many years it takes from the first precipitation onto the mountain to the water’s eventual emergence at the spring. Once it was said that it takes about 100 years. But one of the dominant theories today claims that it takes just 15 years. Considering the fact that Wakutama Pond is a distance of about only 20km from the summit of Mt. Fuji, that’s a long time. So, if you stand by the pond and gaze at the water, it might be interesting to think about what you were doing 15 years ago when the water you see first fell onto Mount Fuji!
Wakutama Pond is also important from cultural and religious points of view because it is a place where people in the Middle Ages would perform ‘cold-water ablutions’ before ascending Mount Fuji. People believed that kami (Shinto gods) resided in Mt. Fuji, or that Mt. Fuji itself was kami. So, if people had an occasion to climb the mountain from its southwest side, they used to come to this pond first and disrobe there before purifying their bodies and minds in its holy water. Then they would begin ascending the mountain to get closer to kami. These activities of medieval Mount Fuji pilgrims at Wakutama Pond are well documented in the 16th-century religious painting called Fuji Mandara.
Once I talked with an elderly local person by the pond. He said that he had his wedding ceremony held at Sengen Taisha when he was young. So I asked him what the ceremony was like. He said, “Well, all I can remember is that the hall was cold. It was very cold. But we had an accompaniment of traditional Japanese flute music and dancing. It was a live performance, not from a tape.”
“Where did you go for a honeymoon? Was Hawaii a popular destination?” I asked.
“No, Hawaii was not yet popular as a honeymoon spot at that time. Only a handful of rich people could go to Hawaii. Kyushu was the most popular spot when we were young. So we went to Aso.”
Mount Aso and its surrounding area in Kumamoto Prefecture is still a popular sightseeing spot in the Kyushu Region. He told me that, when he was a child, he and his friends would often get into the cold water of the pond to gather shellfish, and sometimes they could get even scallops there. Of course, no one enters into the pond to gather shellfish nowadays.
Lastly, I would like to note that this pond is a very photogenic place. Besides the crystal clear water in which we can actually see some fish swimming, the picturesque foot bridge and the small shrines with their vermillion-colored tori-i gate add an exotic touch to the pond. Speaking of flora, the wisteria trees beside the small structure of Mizuya Shrine by the pond open their flowers in spring, and the waterweeds open their white flowers in summer.
Mt. Fuji World Heritage Centre, Shizuoka
Mt. Fuji World Heritage Centre, Shizuoka is, to put it simply, a “Mount Fuji museum” which is located just next to the ichino-torii (the first torii gate) of Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine. Now, with a number of excellent exhibitions, it has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the area. In June 2013, Mount Fuji, the symbolic mountain of Japan, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site under the name of ‘Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration’. And then, four and a half years later, in December 2017, this museum opened.
According to the official statement, this museum was created for the purpose of “conveying to the present and future generations all things related to Mount Fuji”. And it also functions “as a center devoted to preserving the sacred mountain”. They built it just beside the Ichi-no-torii (the first torii gate) of Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha Shrine. In this museum, you can learn a lot about various aspects of Mount Fuji: its history, religion, art, and nature, for example.
I had been looking forward to visiting the museum long before its completion because some fascinating stories and rumors about it had already reached my ears. I had heard that the total construction cost would amount to be 4.1 billion yen (roughly 39 million dollars as of March 2018), the main building would be in the shape of an inverted Mt. Fuji, and we would be able to ‘simulate’ Mt. Fuji climbing there. These things intrigued me much. So I remember I was really glad when I finally got to visit there.
At first I would like to talk about the facade of the building. There is a very big water basin (in architectural lingo, a ‘water feature’) in front of the inverted-Mt. Fuji-shaped main building. The water in the large basin is actually Mt. Fuji’s spring water. First they draw the water from the nearby stream. And after circulating in the building for the air conditioners, it finally comes to the basin. It represents the concept of the museum, “the circulation and reflection of Mt. Fuji’s water.”
And when you poise your camera trying to capture the building and casually gaze down at the surface of the water, you will realize the true intention of the creator of this facility: you will find there is a reflection of the building on the water, which is not an inverted Mt. Fuji anymore but an right-side-up cone-shaped accurate description of the mountain! This facility was designed by Shigeru Ban, a renowned architect who received the honorable Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2014. The exterior of the main building is covered by wooden latticework. The wood was locally produced in Fujinomiya City and Fuji City, and is known as the brand name “Fuji Hinoki Made.”
Entering the facility, you begin ascending the gentle slope that extends spirally 193 meters to the top 5th floor. As you do so, you realize you are now simulating the experience of ascending Mount Fuji. You will notice the scenery from the mountain is projected on the side wall beside you. And these scenes are not static ones but very lively time-lapse images, and they are changing as you go along: at first it seems you are walking through the green forest with birds singing above your head, but after a moment as you go up, the plants are gradually diminishing and you are in a desolate landscape, surrounded by volcanic rocks (this would put you at the 2,500 meter point on the actual mountain).
The shadows of ‘other climbers’ suddenly appear just like living figures. And when you ‘look down’, you can see some clouds, local towns, and the sea. When you see the view of the sea, which is the Pacific Ocean, you will notice the fact that you are now climbing the mountain from the southern side (Shizuoka Prefecture side), not from the northern Yamanashi Prefecture side. The museum is in Shizuoka Prefecture.
Then at the end of the slope (at the top floor), there is the Observation Room where the actual Mt. Fuji can be seen majestically before you (if the weather is good). And on the wall of the Observation Room, there is a collection of photographs which are equally interesting. They are photos of many local “Fuji” existing all around Japan. For a long time, it seems Japanese people have had a tendency to put the word Fuji on the name of their local mountains with majestic presence. Looking at all those “Fuji” in Japan would parhaps arouse in one a strange feeling: it is as though Fuji suddenly assumes different meaning and turns into something completely unknown, which even transcends the actual Fuji . . . .
There are several rooms and corners along the spiral slope, each of which introduces Mt. Fuji from different angles. These exhibitions are all very attractive and informative, using latest IT technology. And many of the explanations can be accessed in four different languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean. All the staff members are kind and well-trained. They give you advise about, among other things, where you should go next. The last time I visited there, one of them kindly took me to the movie theater in time for the start of the short film. The theater has a large 265 inches screen that can show the high-resolution 4K images. The footage about the nature and culture of Mt. Fuji is wonderful.
To sum it up, I felt this is a well-conceived facility, which can be enjoyed with either a short or long visit. Even if you have only 40 minutes, it could be exciting. And if you stay for a few hours, you can take your time and learn quite a lot about Mt. Fuji through many of the instructive exhibitions. And by the time you pass through the exit gate, you might already have become an expert on Mt. Fuji! Also, what I think is special about this facility is that it is a place you can “meet with” Mt. Fuji even if the actual weather is bad. Even if the mountain is not visible through the rain, you can enjoy its magnificent image (projected on the
Getting There
Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha is about a 20-minute drive from the Fuji Interchange on the Tomei Expressway, or about a 18-minute drive from the Shin-Fuji Interchange on the Shin-Tomei Expressway. If you use a railway, it is about a 7-minute walk from Fujinomiya Station on the Minobu Line.
Other Photos
Places Nearby
Omiya Yokocho is located in front of the bus parking lot of Sengen Taisha Shrine. In this spot you can have some famous local dishes such as Fujinomiya Yakisoba (Fujinomiya-style fried noodle). Shiraito Falls is about a 24-minute drive from Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha. This site is one of the representative sightseeing spots on the southwestern foot of Mount Fuji. It is also popular as one of the beautiful fall-color spots in Fujinomiya City.
Last Statement & Contact
If you are going to visit Japan and are looking for a private English-speaking tour guide in the Shizuoka area (or at the southern foot of Mount Fuji), please send an e-mail from the Rates/Contact page of this site.
Photographs by Koji Ikuma, unless otherwise noted.
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