The story goes that Kalala Devi, mother of Chavundaraya, wished to have a darshan of the golden statue at Poudanapura. The obedient son, seeing the intense spiritual fervour of his mother, set out on a long pilgrimage to see the golden statue along with his mother and Guru Acharya Ajithasena, and spent a night at Shravanabelagola en-route to Poudanapura. In identical dreams, the Kushmandini Yakshi ordered Chavundaraya to erect a statue. The next morning, as directed in the dream, Chavundaraya flung his golden arrow with the first shaft of the rising sun from the top of Chandragiri hill to the top of the bigger hill opposite. Immediately the prophecy came true and the image of Bahubali was discerned. Chavundaraya then entrusted the task of chiseling the statue out of a huge block of granite to the most skillful sculptors of the land under the guidance of Arishtanemi. In later years, Chavundaraya, filled with the pride of achievement and arrogance, set out to perform the Mahamastaka Abhisheka. But, the anointing liquids - coconut, milk and the five nectars -would not descend down the navel. At that moment, legend goes, Gullikayajji, an old woman presented herself with a little milk in the shell of a white Gullikai fruit. Many derided her but Acharya Nemichandra advised Chavundaraya to invite her. As the humble devotee of Bahubali poured the milk in the shell, it instantly ran down the image, reaching the feet of the statue and covered the hill around.
A chastened Chavundaraya then made it mandatory that Mahamastaka Abhisheka be performed every 12 years for Lord Bahubali. The Mahamastaka Abhisheka of 1981 coincided with 1,000 years of the consecration of the statue while the Mahamastaka Abhisheka of 1993 was the last of the previous millennium.