Konohanasakuya-hime, whose name evokes the blossoming of the trees, is the kami of blossom and of Mount Fuji, a goddess of delicate beauty and of the transience that the cherry blossom, blooming brilliantly and falling swiftly, has always signified in Japan. In the mythic cycle of the descent of the heavenly line to earth, she is met and married by Ninigi, the grandson of the sun goddess Amaterasu who has come down to rule the land. Her story turns on a trial of fidelity. Very soon after their marriage Konohanasakuya-hime conceives, and Ninigi, doubting that a child got so quickly could be his own and suspecting her of unfaithfulness, questions her honour.
To prove that the children are truly the offspring of the heavenly god and not of any earthly one, she makes a fierce wager: she shuts herself inside a birthing hut, seals it, and sets it ablaze, declaring that if the children are Ninigi's own they will come to no harm in the flames. In the heart of the fire she safely gives birth to her sons, vindicating her fidelity and the divine descent of her children, from whom, the tradition holds, the imperial line descends. As the goddess of Mount Fuji she is enshrined at the Sengen (Asama) shrines associated with the mountain, and she is invoked for safe childbirth, for the blossoming of the fields, and for the beauty and the poignant brevity that the flowering tree represents. Konohanasakuya-hime is one of the loveliest figures of the Shinto pantheon, the divine embodiment of blossom, of the sacred mountain, and of a beauty bound up with impermanence.