One of the best “perks” of being a professor is the opportunity to occasionally go on sabbatical. For most of us academics, that means returning to graduate school days and spending all your time focusing on a research project. Free from the distraction of teaching classes and grading papers, relieved from the tedium of committee meetings, you can concentrate all your attention on a subject that interests you.
Mount Fuji had fascinated me, as a majestic natural sight, from the first time I saw it in 1962 through the window of a Boeing 707 jetliner flying into Tokyo for dissertation research on Shugendo. For three years I was totally wrapped up in deciphering Shugendo, but Fuji was always in the background. I spent a lot of time at Mount Haguro, which is a sacred mountain, and Fuji is the “Number One” sacred mountain in Japan.
Not until some years passed did I have the opportunity to climb Fuji. The summer of 1969, while in Japan doing research on Japanese “new religions,” I visited the headquarters of Fusokyo, one example of a new religion, which incorporated beliefs and practices associated with the sacredness of Fuji. This group invited me to join them on their annual summer pilgrimage ascending the peak, an invitation I could not refuse. Tradition has separated the mountain into ten “stations.” In earlier times, pilgrims spent weeks walking to Fuji and climbing it from the foothills to the summit. In modern times, a highway takes vehicles to the fifth station, from which pilgrims—and more frequently, tourists—climb to the summit.
I joined the members of Fusokyo on their bus trip to the fifth station of Fuji, and observed the rituals they performed along the way from the fifth station to the summit. A climax at the mountaintop was drinking a sacred toast of sake from a small clay saucer and then throwing it into Fuji’s crater. The devotion of these people to their sacred mountain impressed me, and I vowed to some day study and write about this subject. I was sure that someone else would be the first Westerner to write about Fuji. I mentioned this to the anthropologist Robert J. Smith, who had written the first major Western work on ancestor worship. He laughed, saying not to worry, because Fuji, like ancestor worship, is so obvious that people take it for granted and don’t study it.
For almost two decades after my first ascent of Fuji in 1969, my plan to do a book on Fuji, like the mountain itself, remained dormant. Classes, other projects, committee assignments (and university politics!) kept me quite busy. For several years I planned ahead for my 1988-89 sabbatical to be a research trip to do a study of the religious and aesthetic symbolism of Japan. This project, like most of my studies, was an ambitious, almost impossible undertaking. Japanese scholars had completed highly detailed books on just one aspect of the mountain, but my audacious goal was to provide an overview of all cultural dimensions of Fuji.
This mountain truly is a multi-faceted phenomenon, going back to its prehistoric origins as a volcano, praised in ancient poetry as a divine form, and lionized in art forms. Its religious dimensions are based on indigenous notions of sacred mountains, enhanced with Buddhist practices of asceticism and Taoist notions of a mystical otherworld. Although this peak, particularly when snow-covered, is viewed as a magnificent and imposing symmetrical triangle, religious groups come to the mountain not only to admire its beautiful appearance, but to worship its holiness and power.
In many traditions, the sacred (to use Eliade’s term) is seen as ambivalent, both destroyer and creator. The early eruptions of Fuji are testimony to the power of Fuji; and the water that flows down its slopes are venerated as a life-giving force. Much of the history of this tradition is recounted in my book, Mount Fuji: Icon of Japan (also appearing in Japanese translation). The thesis of the book, reduced to an oversimplification, is that this peak has come to stand for Japan, not only religiously, but also artistically, and even politically.
Always a risk-taker, I planned to cover the diversity of Fuji religiosity by making the ascent with three different pilgrimage organizations, and to use a brief questionnaire with each group. One open-ended question on this survey ask pilgrims to write down why they climbed Fuji. The best answer of all was the reply, “A Japanese does not need a reason to climb Fuji!”
The most daring, and also most enjoyable part of this project was using a video camera to document Fuji pilgrimage. A consultation with audiovisual staff at my university cautioned me on the do’s and don’ts of amateur videos. Do have a narrative in mind, and stick to it. Don’t wave a camera around and then expect the audiovisual people to turn it into a cohesive story. My narrative, as explained to these staff, was the pilgrimage from Tokyo to Fuji and back, and the rituals of pilgrimage groups. They said that would work.
I spent a sabbatical year and two summers, almost sixteen months in Japan, reading Japanese books, consulting with professors, and doing field work on the mountain, including video footage documenting the pilgrimage. Perhaps the most dramatic scene in the video is a sunrise shot from the summit, capturing the shadow of Fuji against the surrounding landscape. Even after viewing the video many times, the sight of this sacred mountain impressing its form on the landscape makes me gasp.
My interpretation of Fuji is that it has become the icon of Japan. This is echoed in the impressive fire ritual performed at pilgrimage organizations in the Tokyo area. The image of Fuji is omnipresent—on altars as well as on clothing. Miniature Fuji replicas have been constructed in and around Tokyo, where people who cannot make the trip to the mountain can pay their respects. We might say these people are living in the shadow of Fuji.
When I first showed the video, “Fuji: Sacred Mountain of Japan,” a student came up afterwards, asking, “You mean you spent sixteen months researching Fuji and creating this video”? I told him that was right. “And you got paid to do that?” I said yes. “Where do I get a job like that?”
I never made any money on this video. My pay was the reward of helping others appreciate the grandeur of this sacred mountain. The Fuji study and the documentary video were the most fun project of my career.
Mementoes of Fuji decorate my office as I write this. In effect, I, too, live in the shadow of Fuji.
If you want to go with me on a virtual pilgrimage to Fuji, the two-part You Tube video “Fuji: Sacred Mountain of Japan,” (part 1) (part 2) to see the 28-minute video. It won a Philo T. Farnsworth award in 1990 for that year’s best religion video shown on access TV.
H. Byron Earhart 