The present invention provides a load failure protection circuit and a discharge lamp driving apparatus, which can exactly detect a failure even if the failure arises in any of a plurality of discharge lamps, and can stop drive of the discharge lamp. A part of currents of corresponding CCFLs (201 and 202) flows into two bypass resistors (21a and 21b), further, a full current of the bypass resistors (21a and 21b) flows into a resistor for full current detection (22), and its voltage drop is inputted into a control IC (1) as a feedback signal. On the other hand, cathodes of Zener diodes (25a and 25b) are connected to end parts of the bypass resistors (21a and 21b) on each CCFL side. When potential of any one of the cathodes rises by a load failure, a corresponding one of the Zener diodes (25a and 25b) generates a Zener voltage for a transistor (26) to become conductive. Therefore, since a feedback signal line connected to the collector of the transistor (26) is made at the ground potential forcibly, it is decided to be a load failure by the control IC (1), and drive of the discharge lamp is stopped.