Summary: The Aryan merchant class called Vaniks or Panis, who lived among the Cholas in the south, migrated to West Asia in the early third or late second millennium BC. They were expert shipbuilders and navigators. They first settled in the valley of Euphrates and Tigris and called the place as Chola Desh which was later distorted to Chaldea, and came to be known as Mesopotamia/Sumeria. They travelled West and reached the eastern coast of the Mediterranean where they established Phoenicia.