status of jainism as a separate religion there are jains that believe in the concept of the brahm an this is why jainism was also known in ancient times as a brahma path path to god jaini p collected papers on jaina studies paul dundas writes however the earliest censuses of india suggest that many jains and members of other religious groups saw themselves as in fact constituting varieties of hinduism and according to the census report for the punjab of 'in view of the unwillingness of large number of jains and sikhs to be classed separately from hindus permission was given to record such persons as jain hindus and sikh hindus dundas p the jains atheistic non theistic jains are a different religion from the jains that worship hindu figures there are hindu jains and non hindu jains