After thirty years of praying and fasting, Ahuramazda granted him a vision. Zarathustra received his prophetic calling in about his thirtieth year, in which he envisioned God through Vohu Manah, or "Good Mind.". His prophecies were not foretelling of the future, but revolutionary messages of religious purity and social justice, speaking out against corrupt priests and potentates.

He also opposed the bloody sacrifices of the traditional Iranian cults. He had an almost fanatical dislike of the priests of the god Mithras. He was forced to leave his country but obtained asylum from a Chorasmian king named Hystaspes. It can be deduced from Gathas, the Divine Songs of Zarathustra, written by him that since he was persecuted by some of his contemporary theologians and religious traders, he escaped his birthplace and appealed to one of the sovereigns of his time, called King Goshtasb.  The king was impressed by Zarathustra’s teachings and followed him. Zarathustra was cast out of his original home, and forced to wander, along with his followers and their animals. He and his followers wandered until they found a sympathetic friend in King Vishtaspa, who may have lived in eastern Iran or in Bactria, modern Afghanistan. There, Zarathustra won over the king, and his court, and became the court prophet. There is no exact or provable information about Zarathustra's life at court, though it may be assumed that it was here that he composed the Gathas, and the names of king and court appear in the poetry as if, in oral recitation, they were there listening to him.

Zarathustra is said to have had six children, three boys and three girls.But the last Gatha is composed for the marriage of Zarathustra's daughter Pouruchista (Full of Wisdom) so he is known to have had at least one child. Zarathustra, in the legends, had three wives (in sequence) of whom the last was Hvovi (Good Cattle) the daughter of King Vishtaspa's prime minister. Thus Zarathustra married into the king's court.

Zarathustra's Death

The prophet may have spent almost three decades at the King's court, before his death at age 77. Again, no one knows how Zarathustra died. Many legends and Zoroastrian tradition say that he was killed, while praying in the sanctuary, by a foreign enemy of the king. Other Zoroastrian traditions and scholars say that Zarathustra died peacefully.

One of the controversies about Zarathustra concerns whether he was a priest. He did not live in a religious vacuum, but was born into a society that practiced the polytheistic rites of ancient Indo-Iranian religion. This religion already had a well-developed system of priesthood and service. It is very possible that Zarathustra, if not a priest, had priestly training (how else would he know the highly technical spiritual language found in the Gathas, as well as the ability to compose philosophical/religious poetry?). Other Zoroastrians, including more traditionally minded ones, say that Zarathustra was indeed a priest and the first of the millennia-old tradition of Zoroastrian ritualizing priesthood.

In much later Zoroastrian traditions, the life of the Prophet abounds with miracles and divine interventions. His mother glowed with the divine Glory usually reserved for kings; the soul of the prophet was placed by God in the sacred Haoma plant (which Z. condemned in the Gathas) and the prophet was conceived through the essence of Haoma in milk (though the birth is not a virgin birth, but the natural product of two special, but earthly parents.). The child laughed at his birth instead of crying, and he glowed so brightly that the villagers around him were frightened and tried to destroy him. All attempts to destroy young Zarathustra failed; fire would not burn him nor would animals crush him in stampedes; he was cared for by a mother wolf in the wilderness.

He spent years in the wilderness communing with God before his first vision, in which Vohu Manah came to him in the form of an Angel. All the heavenly entities, the Amesha Spentas, instructed Zarathustra in heaven, and he received perfect knowledge of past, present, and future. Zarathustra's preaching to King Vishtaspa was enhanced by miracles, especially the healing of a paralyzed horse that convinced the king to accept the new religion.

Whether any of this literally happened is a matter for belief, not scholarship. Tradition-minded Zoroastrians do accept these legends as truth about Zarathustra. Other, more modern Zoroastrians, who rely more on the Gathas as a scriptural source, discount the legends as pious fantasies, noting that there are no miracles or supernatural interventions in the Gathas.

Unlike the Koran, the Gathas of Zarathustra are not "channeled" - that is, the Gathas are regarded as the inspired composition of a poet-prophet rather than a text dictated by a heavenly being. Zarathustra was inspired by God, through the Bounteous Immortals of Vohu Manah, Asha, and the others - but he was not a passive recipient of the divine wisdom. In accordance with Zoroastrian philosophy, he reached God through his own effort simultaneously with God's communication to him.

Zarathustra was never divine, not even in the most extravagant legends. He remained a man like all others, though divinely gifted with inspiration and closeness to Ahura Mazda. His life is an inspiration for Zoroastrians of all persuasions, traditionalist and modern - in his innovation, loving relationship with God, and spiritual courage he is a model for all his followers. After his death. Zarathustra's great soul attains almost the level of a Bounteous Immortal, but still is not merged in the divinity.

The example of the Prophet is still good today, and anyone who sees his or her own religion overwhelmed by insensitive, exploitative "orthodoxy" can sympathize with this ancient revolutionary whose message is ever fresh and ever new.