Mount Fuji Konohana-Sakuya-hime Legend

The Mount Fuji Konohana-Sakuya-hime legend is the post-descent marriage cycle of the goddess and her husband Ninigi-no-Mikoto. The descended Ninigi meets Konohana-Sakuya-hime, daughter of Oyamatsumi-no-Kami, at Cape Kasasa, and a single night's union leaves her pregnant. When Ninigi questions her chastity, she sets fire to the birthing hut to demonstrate her honour and gives birth to three sons - Hoderi-no-Mikoto, Hosuseri-no-Mikoto and Ho-ori-no-Mikoto. The goddess is later received as the pacifying deity of Mount Fuji, set at the centre of Fuji worship as the goddess who quiets the volcano. The structure has three parts: meeting and marriage at Cape Kasasa; setting fire to the birthing hut to prove honour and giving birth to three sons; and transformation into the pacifying deity of Mount Fuji and the establishment of the volcano cult. Likened to the short-lived cherry blossom (sakura), the goddess also carries the 'origin of mortality' narrative, by which the emperor's lifespan was shortened when Ninigi sent back her elder sister Iwanaga-hime. Three motifs - fire, cherry and mountain - meet. The site is Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha in Miyamachi, Fujinomiya (Shizuoka), the ichinomiya of Suruga; from the eighth station upward the mountain is its sacred ground. With Kitaguchi Hongu Fuji Sengen Jinja in Fujiyoshida and Sengen shrines at Gotemba and Sushiri, it is the head shrine of more than 1,300 Sengen shrines and the centre of Fuji worship. The Mount Takachiho cycle in Hyuga and Cape Kasasa share a heavenly descent belief area. Sources include the Konohana-Sakuya-hime episode in the upper scroll of the Kojiki (712 CE), the age-of-the-gods ninth section, 'one writing,' of the Nihon Shoki (720 CE), and the Sendai Kuji Hongi. Later texts include the medieval Fujisan Engi and the Edo Kai-no-Kuni-shi (1814) and Suruga-no-Kuni Shin-Fudoki (1834). The shrine's records and Fujisan World Heritage commentary provide further documentation.