In the Kandyan kingdom of the interior, Buddhism remained the state religion. Kandyan rulers continued to patronize Buddhist institutions as the ancient Sinhala kings had done, and they remained in control of the tooth relic. Through much of the 18th century however, the sangha was in a weakened state, with the ordination lineage broken. The Buddhist "priests" of the kingdom lacked the proper ordination rites (at least 5 fully ordained monks are required to fully ordain a new monk). These Buddhist religious figures which were not really proper monks ("bhikkhus"), but served a similar role to traditional monastics were called "ganinnanses." Kandyan kings did attempt to re-establish the ordination lineage through their religious links to Burmese Buddhism, but these were not very successful.