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
Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a teenager, but this work remains unpublished. The short score of the third symphony by Arnold Bax originally began with a quotation from Thus Spoke Zarathustra: ‘My wisdom became pregnant on lonely mountains; upon barren stones she brought forth her young’. Latin American writer Giannina Braschi wrote the philosophical novel "United States of Banana" based on Walter Kaufman's translation of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"; in it, Zarathustra and Hamlet philosophize about the liberty of modern man in a capitalist society. Italian progressive rock band Museo Rosenbach released in 1973 the album "Zarathustra", with lyrics referring to the book. "Also Sprach