Hina matsuri was originally one of five seasonal festivals (sekku) in ancient Japan, called “joshi-no sekku.”
During the Heian period, it was very important for the aristocrats to perform the purification on the day of sekku (“sekku” literally means the turn of the season) to cleanse themselves of bad lucks.
This custom later combined with a paper doll play at court called “hiina-asobi” and was transformed into “hiina-nagashi,” a ritual to float paper dolls on a river to wash away one’s misfortune with the dolls. This became the origin of the Girls’ Festival.
It was since the Edo period that people started to cerebrate the festival exclusively for girls by displaying dolls on a tiered platform.