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 Zarathustra recognizing that his legacy is beginning to perpetuate, and consequently choosing to leave the higher men to their own devices in carrying his legacy forth. "Zarathustra" also contains the famous dictum "God is dead", which had appeared earlier in "The Gay Science". In his autobiographical work "Ecce Homo", Nietzsche states that the book's underlying concept is discussed within "the penultimate section of the fourth book" of 'The Gay Science' ("Ecce Homo", Kaufmann). It is the eternal recurrence of the same events. This concept first occurred to Nietzsche while he was walking in Switzerland through the woods along the lake