jains are not at all hindus.. nor hindus are jains.. both the rligions are age old religions.. so old that its difficult to say that both the religions are one and the same..
jains dont accept the vedas as their holy granthas, so tehy are not vedic.. jains belive in JINA.. and the followers of JINA is called as jain..
jain is a religion propogated by jain tirthankara..
how can one religion be a subsect of other religion...?
there are evidences of the jain idols found in the ruins and excavations of HADDAPPA and MOHANDE JADO..
jianism existed well before the times of mahaveer swami.. mahaveer swami ie the 24th tirthankara .. he is not the founder of jains..
the first jain tirthankara is the AADINATH or RISHABHNATHA....
even if hindus consider aadinath as one of the avtaras of vishnu.. jains consider AADINATH as the independent soul.. not the avtara of any deity or god..
the concept of world is totally different in both the religions..
hindus consider that brahma vishnu and mahesh are the ones, who look after this world..
it is the belief of the hindus that the world is controlled by these deities..
where as jains consider that there is no god to control the world..
every thing in this world has its own laws, similarly the world has its own laws of existance...
no one is the creator and the destroyer of this world..
this is the firm belief of jains...
there are separate holy books for jains as there are pooranas for hindus..
the holy books of jains are called as the AAGAMS..
the literature in the AAGAM is said to be the tirthankara waani.. the teachings of tirthankaras..
in jain tradition,,, the complete VEETARAG state of an individual is worshipped..
this state is not worshipped in vedic tradition.
the acharyas and the dharmagurus vary in both the religions a lot...
we find a lot of difference of practices in the hindu dharmaguru and the jain dharmaguru...
even it has been declared by the supreme court that jains are not hindus..
even so much so that a non jain is not at all supposed to visit the jain temple... as a jain temple is a place of worship for the jains and not the non jains...
there are lot more things that are even common in both the religions,, but i want to point out that jains are not at all hindus , and hindus are not jains..