Zoroaster Zoroaster Zoroaster (, ; "Zōroastrēs"), (Persian: زرتشت pronounced as Zartusht) also known as Zarathustra (, ; "Zaraθuštra"), Zarathushtra Spitama, or Ashu Zarathushtra, was an ancient Persian prophet, spiritual leader and ethical philosopher who taught a spiritual philosophy of self-realization and realization of the Divine. His teachings challenged the existing traditions of the Indo-Iranian religion and later developed into the religion of Mazdayasna or Zoroastrianism. He inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Ancient Persia. He was a native speaker of Old Avestan and lived in the eastern part of the Iranian Plateau, but his exact birthplace is
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by coinages. An example is "Untergang", literally "down-going" but used in German to mean "setting" (as of the sun) but also "sinking", "demise", "downfall" or "doom"; which Nietzsche pairs with its opposite "Übergang" (meaning "transition", literally "over-going"). Another example is "Übermensch" (overman or superman), discussed later in this article. The book chronicles the fictitious travels and speeches of Zarathustra. Zarathustra's namesake was the founder of Zoroastrianism, usually known in English as Zoroaster (). Nietzsche is clearly portraying a "new" or "different" Zarathustra, one who turns traditional morality on its head. He goes on to characterize "what the name of Zarathustra