Tainai-kuguri and Tainai Hall 胎内くぐりと胎内堂

Official explanation

The Tainai Hall is a small, single-story building constructed on the side of a cliff in the upper reaches of Yamadera. Priests would reach the building by crossing a crevasse spanned by a worn, horizontal wooden ladder, and then crawling through a narrow stone grotto called the Tainai-kuguri. Tainai literally means “womb,” and passing through the grotto is considered symbolic of spiritual rebirth.

The hall was used for meditation and other ascetic practices, and enshrines six images of the bodhisattva Jizo, the savior of all sentient beings. It is closed to the public.

出典: 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース（観光庁） — www.mlit.go.jp/tagengo-db. この英語解説文は観光庁の地域観光資源の多言語解説整備支援事業で作成しました。
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, Multilingual Explanation Database. This English text was produced by the Japan Tourism Agency's multilingual explanation project and is shown unedited. Opening hours and services may have changed since it was written.