All of this leaves unanswered the question of what it is he means by religion. He mentions spiritual values, Zen, and Shinto which some regard as matters of religion or at least not distinct from religion.

I do understand. That's why I started this thread. Trying to find an answer from you all

When Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成) was honoured with the Nobel Prize of literature, he said: literature will defeat religion. This statement made a good debate among Japanese readers and philosophers back in the day that they wondered what Kawabata was considering about.

It is not the first time where through books or novels religion is criticised. Poets or writers, when they wrote their plays, sometimes suffered the consequences or even were banned by church.
This is why somehow literature is also seen as a good knowledge tool against sacred texts and so.

Why do you think Kawabata said literature can defeat religion? Is it related to promote a better educational system or the pursue of a free state of knowledge through books?

Note: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1968 was awarded to Yasunari Kawabata "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind." The Nobel Prize in Literature 1968 — javi2541997

Better put perhaps: literature Is religion. How so?

Just some thoughts: Let's call literature a kind of mimesis, to borrow from Aristotle, of a praxis, which simply means it imitates life. But not only imitates, does so poignantly, with an eye to something about our "dramatic" human situation--"its tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral..." (Polonius). so in literature we do not get simply the affairs of life. We get an affective erudition of life played out before us so that we can stand apart and wonder. What Dewey would call a consummatory performance played out in the author's imagination. What has this to do with religion?

Much philosophy fails in that it concerns itself exclusively with an abstract mimesis called propositional truth: what is in the world and what are the conditions for knowing it? Religion, mostly, is an abundant muthos, affectively satisfying, but caring little for propositional truth. Literature, however, displays both, contains both: wonder and truth.

I see your point that they are clearly different aspect with different proposes. But where I disagree with you is in the fact, you shared, that religion finds out truth. I guess this is exactly where Kawabata made the debate. For him, probably literature is the only available matter where we can pursue freedom because we are opened to write/read whatever we like.
But, in the other hand, religion tends to be dogmatic, because you would not see religious books of killing God, loneliness, suicide, etc...

I see your point that they are clearly different aspect with different proposes. But where I disagree with you is in the fact, you shared, that religion finds out truth. I guess this is exactly where Kawabata made the debate. For him, probably literature is the only available matter where we can pursue freedom because we are opened to write/read whatever we like.
But, in the other hand, religion tends to be dogmatic, because you would not see religious books of killing God, loneliness, suicide, etc... — javi2541997

I don't think about popular religion here, just as I don't think of bad reasoning when I think of Kant. what people do with religion is an entangled business, a lot of which has nothing to do with religion as such.

But it is a very good question, that regarding the truth of religion. What can religion be reduced to once all of the arbitrary entanglements are put aside? Science takes care of the facts, so to speak. Religion takes care of the affectivity of our existence, something science cannot do since affect is not observable. I mean, we can, of course, witness its presence, but there is a dimension of affectivity that which is not observable, and that is its good and bad essence. Put me in screaming pain and after the sciences give all due analyses, there is a residuum of what altogether defies analysis. As Wittgenstein put it, it shows itself, like logic, yet resists analysis because the bad of the screaming pain is not a construct. It is simply a given, a "presence" that language may reveal to us, but its language values do not exhaust what it is.
In this, it is metaphysical, but then: there is no metaphysics that is not "made of" the stuff in our actual presence.
Religion begins here, in the primordial scream, fist clenched raised to heaven. Or, in the bliss of being in love that seeks foundational consummation. Literature can "show" these to us.

One might say that philosophy is simply a rigorous form of literary narrative, which has gone astray in its metaphysics, just like religion.

All of this leaves unanswered the question of what it is he means by religion. He mentions spiritual values, Zen, and Shinto which some regard as matters of religion or at least not distinct from religion. — Fooloso4

Exactly. I think a distinction is being made between the absolutes of traditional Western Religion and a particular type of Spiritual truth as found in Zen. The different types of Scriptures and the ways to find enlightenment, whatever that is.

In study, there are questions and answers. As here. Words leading in circles of confusion towards a degree of clarity if we're lucky.
In the end, or the beginning of the end, it is up to the individual, perhaps best found by writing or reading with a free spirit...a natural flow or intuition? Perhaps no apparent dogma of any description but there remains a belief, a kind of truth?
Still to be analysed with that sharp knife cutting through the empty spaces.

How this translates, or might lead, to a defeat of religion is anyone's guess.

It seems to me that, from the parts I bolded, that there is an opposition to study and reason, even as he writes almost religiously that the disciple must be master of his own thoughts. But I really don't know - only having a passing acquaintance.


***

On the subject of truth or Truth.
From Kawabata's Nobel lecture:

There are of course masters of Zen, and the disciple is brought toward enlightenment by exchanging questions and answers with his master, and he studies the scriptures.

The disciple must, however, always be lord of his own thoughts, and must attain enlightenment through his own efforts. And the emphasis is less upon reason and argument than upon intuition, immediate feeling. Enlightenment comes not from teaching but through the eye awakened inwardly. Truth is in “the discarding of words”, it lies “outside words”. And so we have the extreme of “silence like thunder”, in the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra.

[...]

Saigyo frequently came and talked of poetry. His own attitude towards poetry, he said, was far from the ordinary. Cherry blossoms, the cuckoo, the moon, snow: confronted with all the manifold forms of nature, his eyes and his ears were filled with emptiness.

And were not all the words that came forth true words?
When he sang of the blossoms the blossoms were not on his mind, when he sang of the moon he did not think of the moon.

As the occasion presented itself, as the urge arose, he wrote poetry. The red rainbow across the sky was as the sky taking on color. The white sunlight was as the sky growing bright. Yet the empty sky, by its nature, was not something to become bright. It was not something to take on color. With a spirit like the empty sky he gives color to all the manifold scenes but not a trace remained.

In such poetry was the Buddha, the manifestation of the ultimate truth.”

Here we have the emptiness, the nothingness, of the Orient.

My own works have been described as works of emptiness, but it is not to be taken for the nihilism of the West. The spiritual foundation would seem to be quite different. Dogen entitled his poem about the seasons, “Innate Reality”, and even as he sang of the beauty of the seasons he was deeply immersed in Zen.
— Kawabata Nobel Lecture

Thank you for the translation and links. Will read later.

Already seen it. — javi2541997

Looks like you've done a whole load of research. Is this for an academic qualification?
What were your conclusions after reading the article?

In his Nobel Prize speech Kawabata made definite and strong connection with the Zen tradition of emptiness. I personally like that formulation, that the best thing an old man can learn to do is to drink tea from an empty cup. — javi2541997

Yes. Noted.
Even as we might appreciate his writing, we can still consider:
How much of it is a true reflection of himself, his thoughts or no thoughts ?

Is this for an academic qualification? — Amity

No, it is just that I am curious about Japanese literature, specifically Kawabata.

What were your conclusions after reading the article? — Amity

I think he reached what Japanese mind looks like but in the ancient times, like previously to 1945 when literally everything changed to Japan.
It is important to highlight how Kawabata describe two important pillars to their books: loneliness (most of the characters tend to feel lonely in unique ways) and the role of Geisha (it is strange, but it seems that their characters pay to stay with Geishas just to pursue some affection, not sex. Nevertheless, I think they do not reach it at all)
To understand how important the Geisha role was, I think we should get into a deeper knowledge on Japanese culture.

How much of it is a true reflection of himself, his thoughts or no thoughts ? — Amity

It is known that Kawabata was a lonely man. He lived in Osaka, in an abandoned house where only a few friends or disciples can go there, you can see a video here: Kawabata and Mishima.
I personally think he developed with pride what Japan looked like through his books: green tea, haiku, silence, the art of expressing the snow, geisha, etc...