Visperad

Visperad or Visprad is either a particular Zoroastrian religious ceremony or the name given to a passage collection within the greater Avesta compendium of texts.

The Visperad ceremony "consists of the rituals of the Yasna, virtually unchanged, but with a liturgy extended by twenty-three supplementary sections." These supplementary sections (kardag) are then – from a philological perspective – the passages that make up the Visperad collection. The standard abbreviation for Visperad chapter-verse pointers is Vr., though Vsp. may also appear in older sources.

The name Visperad is a contraction of Avestan vispe ratavo, with an ambiguous meaning. Subject to how ratu is translated,vispe ratavo may be translated as "(prayer to) all patrons" or "all masters" or the older and today less common "all chiefs." or "all lords."

The Visperad ceremony – in medieval Zoroastrian texts referred to as the Jesht-i Visperad, that is, "Worship through praise (Yasht) of all the patrons," developed as an "extended service" for celebrating the gahambars, the high Zoroastrian festivals that celebrate six season(al) events. As seasonal ("year cycle") festivals, the gahambars are dedicated to the Amesha Spentas, the divinites that are in tradition identified with specific aspects of creation, and through whom Ahura Mazda realized ("with his thought") creation. These "bounteous immortals" (amesha spentas) are the "all patrons" – the vispe ratavo – who apportion the bounty of creation. However, the Visperad ceremony itself is dedicated to Ahura Mazda, the ratūm berezem "high Master."