Zoroaster lower right corner. The prophet is holding a star-studded globe. 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
Zoroaster died when he was 77 years and 40 days old. The later Pahlavi sources like Shahnameh, instead claim that an obscure conflict with Tuiryas people led to his death, murdered by a "karapan" (a priest of the old religion) named Brādrēs. In the Gathas, Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between "aša" (truth) and "druj" (lie). The cardinal concept of "aša"—which is highly nuanced and only vaguely translatable—is at the foundation of all Zoroastrian doctrine, including that of Ahura Mazda (who is "aša"), creation (that is "aša"), existence (that is "aša") and as the condition for free