The Great Meireki Fire of 1657 (Meireki 3), which burned samurai residences around Takebashi and much of Edo (lunar 1/18–20 = March 2–4 today), is the name for fires that began first at Honmyo-ji on Hongo Maruyama (now Hongo 5-chome, Bunkyo Ward) and then broke out at two other places. I have also described the urban legend of the “Furisode Fire” as the cause at Honmyo-
ji.
But there is dissent from “Honmyo-ji = the origin.”
Until it moved to Sugamo 5-chome, Toshima Ward, in 1910 (Meiji 43), Honmyo-ji stood in Hongo, as at the time of the fire. In front of a condominium on a corner of the site, the Bunkyo Board of Education has put up a plate, “The site of Honmyo-ji and the Great Meireki Fire,”
(photo at upper left), which says it is “regarded as the origin of the ‘Furisode Fire,’ but there are various theories of the cause” (photo at lower left).
Look also at Honmyo-ji’s own website (http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~honmyoji/).
It states flatly: “In truth Honmyo-ji was not the origin. At the bakufu’s request it took the stigma. … The truth is that the Abe house, adjoining the temple on the windward side, was the origin,” and it posts a map of the temple’s surroundings and the wind (top photo), adding: “If the rōjū (Tadaaki Abe) mansion were named as the origin, bakufu prestige would suffer and reconstruction policy would be hindered, so at the bakufu’s request the temple accepted the stain of being the origin.”
It offers two pieces of circumstantial evidence.
First: “Edo had many fires, and the bakufu punished origins severely, yet this temple received no censure at all. Not only that: three years after the fire the guest hall and kitchen were rebuilt, and six years later the main hall… This was exceptionally generous treatment.”
Second: “The Tadaaki Abe house sent memorial offerings for the Meireki fire to this temple every year for more than 260 years, until the Great Kanto Earthquake of Taisho 12. … It is reasonable to read this as thanks for saving the Abe house from blame for the accidental fire.”
A more detailed report (“http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~honmyoji/taika/hurikaji.pdf”) says this “uncovering of the truth” rests on “The True Origin of the Great Meireki Fire,” published in the temple newsletter by the 40th abbot, Nissen Murakami (d. 1967), who judged that “300 years have passed; no one will be troubled; the statute has run,” and on “The Truth of the Furisode Fire” by parishioner Shigeo Sugiyama (d. 1988) in the January 1983 issue of the Buddhist journal Daihorin. (Tadaaki Abe, incidentally, is said to have opposed expelling ronin from Edo after the Yui Shosetsu rebellion, arguing that the root was poverty and exile would not solve it, and to have raised many abandoned children — stories that show a humane man.)
If the furisode legend was invented to hide the truth, it fits. Compared with the bakufu-arson theory I wrote about on the 26th, the Abe accidental-fire theory seems more credible.
One point still nags. Look again at the top map. It says “Abe Iyo-no-kami.” “Iyo-no-kami” was the title of the Abe main house (the Fukuyama Abe), that is, the cousin of Tadaaki Abe who also served as rōjū, Shigetsugu (Tsushima-no-kami); Shigetsugu’s grandfather Masakatsu and second son Masaharu used Iyo-no-kami. The branch (Shirakawa Abe) Tadaaki was Bungo-no-kami; his adopted son Masanori was Harima-no-kami. Tadaaki was, however, a grandson of Iyo-no-kami Masakatsu.
The map is an “Edo kiriezu,” one of 32 sheets the publisher Owariya issued over 15 years from 1849 (Kaei 2) to 1863 (Bunkyu 3), late in the Edo period. Who held the Abe houses then? The Shirakawa Abe were the 14th Harima-no-kami Masaoki and the 15th Bungo-no-kami Masato, not Iyo-no-kami. The main house (Fukuyama Abe) had the 10th Masanaga and the 12th Masanori, both Iyo-no-kami.
A website notes that a “Shoho-nenchu Edo ezu”
from 1644 (Shoho 1), a little more than ten years before the fire (photo at right), labels the Abe mansion “Abe Tsushima-no-kami” — that is, Shigetsugu (Honmyo-ji is not drawn; the site says it was at position ②; rotate the map 90 degrees right and the layout nearly matches the top map).
In mid-March I emailed Honmyo-ji about the map; as of noon on the 28th there has been no reply.
Was the neighbor of Honmyo-ji really Tadaaki’s house? Or is the map simply wrong…?