Eventually, people no longer prayed only from a distance. They began to enter the mountains themselves. This was an act of drawing closer to the divine, because mountains were believed to contain a special power different from that of the human world.

During the Heian Period, mountain ascetic practices spread, and practitioners known as “shugenja” entered the mountains to train their bodies and spirits, believing these places connected the human and divine realms.

Mount Fuji, as Japan’s highest and most striking peak, became central to this practice.

It is the highest mountain in Japan, rising straight into the sky. Its summit seems almost to touch the heavens.

The shugenja saw in Mount Fuji the world of gods and Buddhas. In this way, it gradually changed from a mountain of prayer into a one of ascetic practice.

At that time, however, only a very small number of practitioners were able to climb it. This changed greatly in the Edo Period, when the number of people setting their sights on Mount Fuji increased dramatically.

At the center of this change was a faith movement known as Fuji-kō.