The Mount Fuji

Deemed a heaven for tourists as well as mountain climbers (over 200,000 people climb it every year), great crowds flock to Mount Fuji, or Fuji-san, mostly during the climbing season of July 1 to August 26. MOUNT FUJI (富士山), meaning, ‘there aren’t two the same’, stands at 3,776.24 metres (12,389.2 ft) height. It is also the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest peak of an island on Earth. One of the Japanese favourite summer activity, climbing the Fuji-san has for long been a religious practice for the mountain climbers and tourists. Although not considered to be dangerous by the orography, Fuji-san is still an active volcano. Its age has been disputed along the years, but one believes it could be as old as 65 million years.

If we scan Mt Fuji, we will get three distinct layers, that is, there are three volcanoes, one placed on the top of each other. At the bottom is “Komitake”– the result of eruptions of 700,000 to 200,000 years back. Surmounting Komitake is “Kofuji” (Old Fuji) – the silhouette formed about 100,000 years ago. Finally, in the past 10,000 years, the mountain of nearly perfect tapered shape – the “Shinfuji” (New Fuji) – has been the top covering.
Located only 60 miles from the capital, Tokyo, Mount Fuji’s exceptionally symmetrical cone, which is snow-capped for about 5 months a year, has become a staple of Japanese art and culture since the 16th century. Considered to be a sacred mountain, it is surrounded by temples and shrines, some even built at the edge and the bottom of the crater. In the picture is the historical illustration of the routes of the Mt. Fuji.

In the Shinto Mythology, the God of the Mountains is called Ōyamatsumi, but it is one of his daughters, the beautiful and ill-tempered Sakuya-Hime (the Princess of Mountain Flower), who steals the show in the narratives. On her first encounter with Ninigi, the grandson of the Sun Goddess and the first Ruler on Earth, Sakuya bats her eyelashes to him, making his knees to wobble. She conceives on their nuptial night. But Ninigi, who had never been told, a man shouldn’t always say what he thinks, especially if at the receiving end is his bride, casts doubts on her swift pregnancy. Infuriated Sakuya locks herself in a hut and set it ablaze on the day of the labor, swearing that if the child is not Ninigi’s, she and the baby will perish in the ashes. A pandemonium breaks in the village. People and animals bustle about to put off the fire. Though, to no avail… the hut burns down to the ground. Some minutes later, to the relief of Ninigi, mother and three babies emerge unharmed from the ashes.

If you are a fan of the Game of Thrones American series, you can draw an analogy to the scene of Queen Daenerys Targaryen, the mother of the dragons, coming out unhurt with her hatched three dragon-babies from the ashes of the blazed funeral pyre of her deceased husband Khal Drogo. Allegedly, it was inspired on this Japanese legend.