Once upon a time, there was a prosperous kingdom called the Baka Kingdom. However, that peace vanished when a powerful prince from the Pengging Kingdom, Bandung Bondowoso, attacked and successfully conquered the kingdom and killed its king, Prabu Baka. Amidst the ruins of defeat, Bandung Bondowoso was captivated by the beauty of the king's daughter, Roro Jonggrang, and intended to marry her.

Roro Jonggrang was in a great dilemma; she hated her father's killer, yet she was powerless to refuse him directly due to Bandung's extraordinary strength. Finally, she proposed a condition that she considered impossible: to build 1,000 temples in a single night before dawn broke. Unexpectedly, Bandung Bondowoso accepted and immediately summoned thousands of genies to work with lightning speed.

As dawn approached, anxiety struck Roro Jonggrang when she saw the 999th temple was nearly finished. She racked her brain and immediately woke her handmaidens to burn straw in the east and pound rice mortars rhythmically. The noisy atmosphere and the reddish sky successfully tricked the roosters into crowing and the genies into fleeing in fear, thinking the sun had risen.

Upon discovering he had been cheated while completing the final temple, Bandung Bondowoso’s anger exploded. He cursed Roro Jonggrang, turning her into stone to complete the missing temple. The princess's figure was immortalized as a beautiful statue, which is now known as the Statue of Goddess Durga in the Prambanan Temple complex.