An offering is made to Lord Ganesh at the Shree Sanatan Mandir.
Leicester already has the biggest Diwali celebrations outside India and it could now have the largest Ganesh festival, too.
Each summer the celebrations marking Ganesh Chaturthi in India last for days.
Over 10 days this month the Shree Sanatan Mandir temple in Weymouth Street, Belgrave, is holding a Ganesh Festival with about 500 guests expected every night to enjoy food, music, dance and worship.
Temple president Vibhooti Acharya said: “Like most temples in Leicester, we held a single day of celebration in previous years and there were usually about 200 to 300 people, so this festival is going to be on a huge scale compared to that and we think it should make our Ganesh Festival the biggest outside India.
“Every night from 7pm between September 17 and September 26 the temple is open to everyone and we’ll have lots of food with dancing competitions and singing, traditional clap-dancing, as well as colouring and activities for the children.
“I’m the first female president of the temple and we’ve got a very young committee who have been running the temple since May and we’re doing things a bit differently.
“We want our festival to appeal to everyone.
“We hope to have visitors from other temples and non-Hindus as well.
“The Ganesh festival is all about sharing and we want people to join in.”
Statues of Lord Ganesh are central to the celebration and as well as having several Ganesh statues ranging in height up to six feet tall, the temple in Weymouth Street has on display 108 pictures of the various forms of Lord Ganesh.
The event, which is completely free, kicked off on Thursday in a traditional manner with the invocation to Lord Ganesh and ends with a grand feast for everyone to share on Saturday, September 26.
Numerous artists and bands will be entertaining the public and dozens of young people from the temple have volunteered to run things over the 10 nights.