The present discharge lamp lighting device is capable of rapidly breaking or restoring a lamp current or of rapidly reducing or restoring the lamp current. A discharge lamp lighting device, comprises a power supply circuit which supplies power to a discharge lamp, a current breaking switch circuit which selectively interrupts a current flowing through the discharge lamp, a lamp condition detector which detects a condition of the discharge lamp, a target signal generating circuit which generates a target signal for lighting the discharge lamp in a predetermined condition, based on an output from the lamp condition detector, and a target signal holding circuit which selectively holds the target signal, wherein when the current is interrupted by the current breaking switch circuit, the target signal holding circuit holds the target signal.