Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c7.48

c7.48

4) Gaṇapati turned into crow. An exceptionally hot summer set in once in South India. The whole land became parched. So Agastya went to Śiva and requested for some holy water, and the Lord put Kāverī who was worshipping him just then, in the Kamaṇḍalu (something like a teapot which sannyāsins carry with them) of Agastya and sent him back. Indra, who did not relish this action of Śiva, asked Gaṇapati to somehow or other upset Agastya's Kamaṇḍalu of holy water, and Gaṇapati, in the guise of a crow went and sat on the brink of the Kamaṇḍalu and thus upset it. Agastya and the crow quarrelled with each other. Then did the crow assume its original form as Gaṇapati and sat on Agastya. Moreover, Gaṇapati filled Agastya's Kamaṇḍalu with holy water, which the latter distributed among devotees in South India, and that is the present Kāverī river.